Genome-wide analysis of Arabidopsis pentatricopeptide repeat proteins reveals their essential role in organelle biogenesis.
The complete sequence of the Arabidopsis thaliana genome revealed thousands of previously unsuspected genes, many of which cannot be ascribed even putative functions. One of the largest and most enigmatic gene families discovered in this way is characterized by tandem arrays of pentatricopeptide repeats (PPRs). We describe a detailed bioinformatic analysis of 441 members of the Arabidopsis PPR family plus genomic and genetic data on the expression (microarray data), localization (green fluorescent protein and red fluorescent protein fusions), and general function (insertion mutants and RNA binding assays) of many family members. The basic picture that arises from these studies is that PPR proteins play constitutive, often essential roles in mitochondria and chloroplasts, probably via binding to organellar transcripts. These results confirm, but massively extend, the very sparse observations previously obtained from detailed characterization of individual mutants in other organisms.
Unité de Recherche en Génomique Végétale, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique/Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Université d'Evry Val d'Essone, CP 5708, 91057 Evry Cedex, France.
Claire
C
Lurin
Charles
C
Andrés
Sébastien
S
Aubourg
Mohammed
M
Bellaoui
Frédérique
F
Bitton
Clémence
C
Bruyère
Michel
M
Caboche
Cédrig
C
Debast
José
J
Gualberto
Beate
B
Hoffmann
Alain
A
Lecharny
Monique
M
Le Ret
Marie-Laure
ML
Martin-Magniette
Hakim
H
Mireau
Nemo
N
Peeters
Jean-Pierre
JP
Renou
Boris
B
Szurek
Ludivine
L
Taconnat
Ian
I
Small
D020816:Amino Acid Motifs; D000818:Animals; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000166:cytology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D019295:Computational Biology; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D018745:Genome, Plant; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D005810:Multigene Family; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D015388:Organelles / Q000502:physiology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D020080:Tandem Repeat Sequences
D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D011993:Recombinant Fusion Proteins; C036483:T-DNA