During the last few years, tremendous progress has been made in understanding various aspects of pre-mRNA processing. This book, with contributions from leading scientists in this area, summarizes recent advances in nuclear pre-mRNA processing in plants. It provides researchers in the field, as well as those in related areas, with an up-to-date and comprehensive, yet concise, overview of the current status and future potential of this research in understanding plant biology.
The discovery in 1977 that genes are split into exons and introns has done away with the one gene - one protein dogma. Indeed, the removal of introns from the primary RNA transcript is not necessarily straightforward since there may be optional pathways leading to different messenger RNAs and consequently to different proteins. Examples of such an alternative splicing mechanism cover all fields of biology. Moreover, there are plenty of occurrences where deviant splicing can have pathological effects. Despite the high number of specific cases of alternative splicing, it was not until recently that the generality and extent of this phenomenon was fully appreciated. A superficial reading of the preliminary sequence of the human genome published in 2001 led to the surprising, and even deceiving to many scientists, low number of genes (around 32,000) which contrasted with the much higher figure around 150,000 which was previously envisioned. Attempts to make a global assessment of the use of alternative splicing are recent and rely essentially on the comparison of genomic mRNA and EST sequences as reviewed by Thanaraj and Stamm in the first chapter of this volume. Most recent estimates suggest that 40-60% of human genes might be alternatively spliced, as opposed to about 22% for C. elegans.
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he past fifteen years have seen tremendous growth in our understanding of T the many post-transcriptional processing steps involved in producing func tional eukaryotic mRNA from primary gene transcripts (pre-mRNA). New processing reactions, such as splicing and RNA editing, have been discovered and detailed biochemical and genetic studies continue to yield important new insights into the reaction mechanisms and molecular interactions involved. It is now apparent that regulation of RNA processing plays a significant role in the control of gene expression and development. An increased understanding of RNA processing mechanisms has also proved to be of considerable clinical importance in the pathology of inherited disease and viral infection. This volume seeks to review the rapid progress being made in the study of how mRNA precursors are processed into mRNA and to convey the broad scope of the RNA field and its relevance to other areas of cell biology and medicine. Since one of the major themes of RNA processing is the recognition of specific RNA sequences and structures by protein factors, we begin with reviews of RNA-protein interactions. In chapter 1 David Lilley presents an overview of RNA structure and illustrates how the structural features of RNA molecules are exploited for specific recognition by protein, while in chapter 2 Maurice Swanson discusses the structure and function of the large family of hnRNP proteins that bind to pre-mRNA. The next four chapters focus on pre-mRNA splicing.
A recent volume of this series (Signals and Signal Transduction Pathways in Plants (K. Palme, ed.) Plant Molecular Biology 26, 1237-1679) described the relay races by which signals are transported in plants from the sites of stimuli to the gene expression machinery of the cell. Part of this machinery, the transcription apparatus, has been well studied in the last two decades, and many important mechanisms controlling gene expression at the transcriptional level have been elucidated. However, control of gene expression is by no means complete once the RNA has been produced. Important regulatory devices determine the maturation and usage of mRNA and the fate of its translation product. Post-transcriptional regulation is especially important for generating a fast response to environmental and intracellular signals. This book summarizes recent progress in the area of post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in plants. 18 chapters of the book address problems of RNA processing and stability, regulation of translation, protein folding and degradation, as well as intracellular and cell-to-cell transport of proteins and nucleic acids. Several chapters are devoted to the processes taking place in plant organelles.
he past fifteen years have seen tremendous growth in our understanding of T the many post-transcriptional processing steps involved in producing func tional eukaryotic mRNA from primary gene transcripts (pre-mRNA). New processing reactions, such as splicing and RNA editing, have been discovered and detailed biochemical and genetic studies continue to yield important new insights into the reaction mechanisms and molecular interactions involved. It is now apparent that regulation of RNA processing plays a significant role in the control of gene expression and development. An increased understanding of RNA processing mechanisms has also proved to be of considerable clinical importance in the pathology of inherited disease and viral infection. This volume seeks to review the rapid progress being made in the study of how mRNA precursors are processed into mRNA and to convey the broad scope of the RNA field and its relevance to other areas of cell biology and medicine. Since one of the major themes of RNA processing is the recognition of specific RNA sequences and structures by protein factors, we begin with reviews of RNA-protein interactions. In chapter 1 David Lilley presents an overview of RNA structure and illustrates how the structural features of RNA molecules are exploited for specific recognition by protein, while in chapter 2 Maurice Swanson discusses the structure and function of the large family of hnRNP proteins that bind to pre-mRNA. The next four chapters focus on pre-mRNA splicing.
A review of the interdisciplinary field of synthetic biology, from genome design to spatial engineering. Written by an international panel of experts, Synthetic Biology draws from various areas of research in biology and engineering and explores the current applications to provide an authoritative overview of this burgeoning field. The text reviews the synthesis of DNA and genome engineering and offers a discussion of the parts and devices that control protein expression and activity. The authors include information on the devices that support spatial engineering, RNA switches and explore the early applications of synthetic biology in protein synthesis, generation of pathway libraries, and immunotherapy. Filled with the most recent research, compelling discussions, and unique perspectives, Synthetic Biology offers an important resource for understanding how this new branch of science can improve on applications for industry or biological research.
Discoveries from the past decades revealed that RNA molecules are much more than inert intermediates between the coding DNA sequences and their functional products, proteins. Today, RNAs are recognized as active regulatory molecules influencing gene expression, chromatin organization and genome stability, thus impacting all aspects of plant life including development, growth, reproduction and stress tolerance. Innovations in methodologies, the expanding application of next-generation sequencing technologies, and the creation of public datasets and databases have exposed a new universe of RNA-based mechanisms and led to the discovery of new families of non-coding RNAs, uncovered the large extent of alternative splicing events, and highlighted the potential roles of RNA modifications and RNA secondary structures. Furthermore, considerable advances have been made in identifying RNA-binding and processing factors involved in the synthesis and maturation of different forms of RNA molecules as well as in RNA processing, biochemical modifications or degradation. This Research Topic showcases the broad biological significance of RNAs in plant systems and contains eight original research articles, one review and four mini-reviews, covering various RNA-based mechanisms in higher plants. Emerging new technologies and novel multidisciplinary approaches are empowering the scientific community and will expectedly bring novel insights into our understanding of the mechanisms through which RNA is regulated and regulates biological processes in plant cells.
The Nuclear Envelope brings together the major current topics in nuclear envelope structure, transport, transcriptional regulation and cell signaling. The volume is divided into four sections: 1. Proteins of the nuclear envelope, including nuclear envelope proteomics, structure and function. 2. Nuclear pores and transport at the nuclear envelope, including pore complex structure, assembly and function and import and export pathways. 3. Nuclear envelope dynamics, including dynamics of lamina assembly and disassembly. 4. Nuclear signaling and transcription regulation, including signaling to the nucleus and spectrin repeat proteins and their implications or communication between the nucleus and cytoplasm.
