title: Emerging functions of mammalian and plant mTERFs.
abstract: Organellar gene expression (OGE) is crucial for plant development, respiration and photosynthesis, but the mechanisms that control it are still largely unclear. Thus, OGE requires various nucleus-encoded proteins that promote transcription, splicing, trimming and editing of organellar RNAs, and regulate their translation. In mammals, members of the mitochondrial transcription termination factor (mTERF) family play important roles in OGE. Intriguingly, three of the four mammalian mTERFs do not actually terminate transcription, as their designation suggests, but appear to function in antisense transcription termination and ribosome biogenesis. During the evolution of land plants, the mTERF family has expanded to approximately 30 members, but knowledge of their function in photosynthetic organisms remains sparse. Here, we review recent advances in the characterization of mterf mutants in mammals and photosynthetic organisms, focusing particularly on the progress made in elucidating their molecular functions in the last two years. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Chloroplast biogenesis.
authors.affiliation: Plant Molecular Biology (Botany), Department Biology I, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 82152 Planegg-Martinsried, Germany. Electronic address: tatjana.kleine@lmu.de.
authors.forename: Tatjana
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kleine
authors.affiliation: Plant Molecular Biology (Botany), Department Biology I, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 82152 Planegg-Martinsried, Germany.
authors.forename: Dario
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Leister
mesh_terms: D050976:Basic-Leucine Zipper Transcription Factors / Q000502:physiology*; D018745:Genome, Plant; D016350:Leucine Zippers / Q000502:physiology*; D024101:Mitochondrial Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D010788:Photosynthesis; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D050976:Basic-Leucine Zipper Transcription Factors; C105178:MTERF1 protein, human; D024101:Mitochondrial Proteins; D010940:Plant Proteins
keywords: Chloroplast; Mitochondrial transcription termination factor (mTERF); Mitochondrion; Organellar gene expression; mTERF function