Diet-dependent depletion of queuosine in tRNAs in Caenorhabditis elegans does not lead to a developmental block.
Queuosine (Q), a hypermodified nucleoside,occurs at the wobble position of transfer RNAs (tRNAs)with GUN anticodons. In eubacteria, absence of Q affects messenger RNA (mRNA) translation and reduces the virulence of certain pathogenic strains. In animal cells,changes in the abundance of Q have been shown to correlate with diverse phenomena including stress tolerance, cell proliferation and tumour growth but the function of Q in animals is poorly understood. Animals are thought to obtain Q (or its analogues) as a micronutrient from dietary sources such as gut micro flora. However,the difficulty of maintaining animals under bacteria-free conditions on Q-deficient diets has severely hampered the study of Q metabolism and function in animals. In this study,we show that as in higher animals, tRNAs in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans are modified by Q and its sugar derivatives. When the worms were fed on Q-deficient Escherichia coli, Q modification was absent from the worm tRNAs suggesting that C.elegans lacks a de novo pathway of Q biosynthesis. The inherent advantages of C.elegans as a model organism, and the simplicity of conferring a Q-deficient phenotype on it make it an ideal system to investigate the function of Q modification in tRNA.
Gaur
Rahul
R
Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India.
Björk
Glenn R
GR
Tuck
Simon
S
Varshney
Umesh
U
D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D004032:Diet; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D009704:Nucleoside Q / Q000378:metabolism*; D012343:RNA, Transfer / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000378:metabolism*
D009704:Nucleoside Q; D012343:RNA, Transfer