title: mRNA poly(A)-tail changes specified by deadenylation broadly reshape translation in Drosophila oocytes and early embryos.
abstract: Because maturing oocytes and early embryos lack appreciable transcription, posttranscriptional regulatory processes control their development. To better understand this control, we profiled translational efficiencies and poly(A)-tail lengths throughout Drosophila oocyte maturation and early embryonic development. The correspondence between translational-efficiency changes and tail-length changes indicated that tail-length changes broadly regulate translation until gastrulation, when this coupling disappears. During egg activation, relative changes in poly(A)-tail length, and thus translational efficiency, were largely retained in the absence of cytoplasmic polyadenylation, which indicated that selective poly(A)-tail shortening primarily specifies these changes. Many translational changes depended on PAN GU and Smaug, and these changes were largely attributable to tail-length changes. Our results also revealed the presence of tail-length-independent mechanisms that maintained translation despite tail-length shortening during oocyte maturation, and prevented essentially all translation of bicoid and several other mRNAs before egg activation. In addition to these fundamental insights, our results provide valuable resources for future studies.
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, United States.|Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States.
authors.forename: Stephen W
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-6410-4699
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Eichhorn
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, United States.|Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States.|Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, United States.
authors.forename: Alexander O
authors.initials: AO
authors.lastname: Subtelny
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States.|Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, United States.
authors.forename: Iva
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kronja
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, United States.|Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States.
authors.forename: Jamie C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Kwasnieski
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States.|Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, United States.
authors.forename: Terry L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Orr-Weaver
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, United States.|Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States.
authors.forename: David P
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-3872-2856
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Bartel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004330:Drosophila / Q000196:embryology*; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D009865:Oocytes / Q000378:metabolism*; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger
keywords: D. melanogaster; Drosophila embryogenesis; Drosophila oogenesis; PAL-seq; chromosomes; developmental biology; genes; posttranscriptional gene regulation; ribosome footprint profiling; stem cells; wispy