title: An investigation into eukaryotic pseudouridine synthases.
abstract: A common post-transcriptional modification of RNA is the conversion of uridine to its isomer pseudouridine. We investigated the biological significance of eukaryotic pseudouridine synthases using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We conducted a comprehensive statistical analysis on growth data from automated perturbation (gene deletion) experiments, and used bi-logistic curve analysis to characterise the yeast phenotypes. The deletant strains displayed different alteration in growth properties, including in some cases enhanced growth and/or biphasic growth curves not seen in wild-type strains under matched conditions. These results demonstrate that disrupting pseudouridine synthases can have a significant qualitative effect on growth. We further investigated the significance of post-transcriptional pseudouridine modification through investigation of the scientific literature. We found that (1) In Toxoplasma gondii, a pseudouridine synthase gene is critical in cellular differentiation between the two asexual forms: Tachyzoites and bradyzoites; (2) Mutation of pseudouridine synthase genes has also been implicated in human diseases (mitochondrial myopathy and sideroblastic anemia (MLASA); dyskeratosis congenita). Taken together, these results are consistent with pseudouridine synthases having a Gene Ontology function of "biological regulation".
authors.affiliation: Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, University of Manchester, 131 Princess Street, Manchester, M1 7DN, UK.
authors.forename: Ross D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: King
authors.forename: Chuan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lu
mesh_terms: D000756:Anemia, Sideroblastic / Q000235:genetics; D005057:Eukaryotic Cells; D017353:Gene Deletion; D006801:Humans; D006836:Hydro-Lyases / Q000235:genetics; D019751:Intramolecular Transferases / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D005810:Multigene Family; D009154:Mutation; D011560:Pseudouridine / Q000378:metabolism; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development*; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D014122:Toxoplasma / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: C474390:Pus7 protein, S cerevisiae; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; D011560:Pseudouridine; D006836:Hydro-Lyases; C022479:pseudouridylate synthetase; D019751:Intramolecular Transferases; C096995:pseudouridine synthases
keywords: RNA; Saccharomyces cerevisiae; biological regulation; growth analysis