Transcripts containing the 5′ untranslated regions of the plastid genes psbA and psbB from higher plants are unstable in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii chloroplasts

1999 ◽  
Vol 262 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 768-771 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Nickelsen
Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 576
Author(s):  
Grayson C. R. Proulex ◽  
Marcus J. Meade ◽  
Kalina M. Manoylov ◽  
A. Bruce Cahoon

Mitochondria carry the remnant of an ancestral bacterial chromosome and express those genes with a system separate and distinct from the nucleus. Mitochondrial genes are transcribed as poly-cistronic primary transcripts which are post-transcriptionally processed to create individual translationally competent mRNAs. Algae post-transcriptional processing has only been explored in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (Class: Chlorophyceae) and the mature mRNAs are different than higher plants, having no 5′ UnTranslated Regions (UTRs), much shorter and more variable 3′ UTRs and polycytidylated mature mRNAs. In this study, we analyzed transcript termini using circular RT-PCR and PacBio Iso-Seq to survey the 3′ and 5′ UTRs and termini for two green algae, Pediastrum duplex (Class: Chlorophyceae) and Chara vulgaris (Class: Charophyceae). This enabled the comparison of processing in the chlorophyte and charophyte clades of green algae to determine if the differences in mitochondrial mRNA processing pre-date the invasion of land by embryophytes. We report that the 5′ mRNA termini and non-template 3′ termini additions in P. duplex resemble those of C. reinhardtii, suggesting a conservation of mRNA processing among the chlorophyceae. We also report that C. vulgaris mRNA UTRs are much longer than chlorophytic examples, lack polycytidylation, and are polyadenylated similar to embryophytes. This demonstrates that some mitochondrial mRNA processing events diverged with the split between chlorophytic and streptophytic algae.


Biology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lola Esland ◽  
Marco Larrea-Alvarez ◽  
Saul Purton

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a model alga of increasing interest as a cell factory for the production of valuable compounds, including therapeutic proteins and bioactive metabolites. Expression of foreign genes in the chloroplast is particularly advantageous as: (i) accumulation of product in this sub-cellular compartment minimises potential toxicity to the rest of the cell; (ii) genes can integrate at specific loci of the chloroplast genome (plastome) by homologous recombination; (iii) the high ploidy of the plastome and the high-level expression of chloroplast genes can be exploited to achieve levels of recombinant protein as high as 5% total cell protein; (iv) the lack of any gene silencing mechanisms in the chloroplast ensures stable expression of transgenes. However, the generation of C. reinhardtii chloroplast transformants requires efficient methods of selection, and ideally methods for subsequent marker removal. Additionally, the use of reporter genes is critical to achieving a comprehensive understanding of gene expression, thereby informing experimental design for recombinant applications. This review discusses currently available selection and reporter systems for chloroplast engineering in C. reinhardtii, as well as those used for chloroplast engineering in higher plants and other microalgae, and looks to the future in terms of possible new markers and reporters that will further advance the C. reinhardtii chloroplast as an expression platform.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicky Atkinson ◽  
Yuwei Mao ◽  
Kher Xing Chan ◽  
Alistair J. McCormick

AbstractPhotosynthetic CO2 fixation in plants is limited by the inefficiency of the CO2-assimilating enzyme Rubisco. In most eukaryotic algae, Rubisco aggregates within a microcompartment known as the pyrenoid, in association with a CO2-concentrating mechanism that improves photosynthetic operating efficiency under conditions of low inorganic carbon. Recent work has shown that the pyrenoid matrix is a phase-separated, liquid-like condensate. In the alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, condensation is mediated by two components: Rubisco and the linker protein EPYC1 (Essential Pyrenoid Component 1). Here, we show that expression of mature EPYC1 and a plant-algal hybrid Rubisco leads to spontaneous condensation of Rubisco into a single phase-separated compartment in Arabidopsis chloroplasts, with liquid-like properties similar to a pyrenoid matrix. This work represents a significant initial step towards enhancing photosynthesis in higher plants by introducing an algal CO2-concentrating mechanism, which is predicted to significantly increase the efficiency of photosynthetic CO2 uptake.


1993 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2277-2285
Author(s):  
D B Stern ◽  
K L Kindle

Inverted repeat (IR) sequences are found at the 3' ends of most chloroplast protein coding regions, and we have previously shown that the 3'IR is important for accumulation of atpB mRNA in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (D. B. Stern, E.R. Radwanski, and K. L. Kindle, Plant Cell 3:285-297, 1991). In vitro studies indicate that 3' IRs are inefficient transcription termination signals in higher plants and have furthermore defined processing activities that act on the 3' ends of chloroplast transcripts, suggesting that most chloroplast mRNAs are processed at their 3' ends in vivo. To investigate the mechanism of 3' end processing in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii chloroplasts, the maturation of atpB mRNA was examined in vitro and in vivo. In vitro, a synthetic atpB mRNA precursor is rapidly cleaved at a position 10 nucleotides downstream from the mature 3' terminus. This cleavage is followed by exonucleolytic processing to generate the mature 3' end. In vivo run-on transcription experiments indicate that a maximum of 50% of atpB transcripts are transcriptionally terminated at or near the IR, while the remainder are subject to 3' end processing. Analysis of transcripts derived from chimeric atpB genes introduced into Chlamydomonas chloroplasts by biolistic transformation suggests that in vivo processing and in vitro processing occur by similar or identical mechanisms.


2010 ◽  
Vol 427 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karolin V. Dorn ◽  
Felix Willmund ◽  
Christian Schwarz ◽  
Christine Henselmann ◽  
Thomas Pohl ◽  
...  

In the present study we report on the identification and characterization of three novel chloroplast-targeted DnaJ-like proteins CDJ3–5, which in addition to their J-domains contain bacterial-type ferredoxin domains. In sequence databases we could identify homologues of CDJ3–5 in green algae, moss and higher plants, but not in cyanobacteria. Phylogenetic analyses allowed us to distinguish two clades containing CDJ3/4 and CDJ5 that must have diverged early in the ancestor of the ‘green lineage’ and have further diversified later on. Molecular and biochemical analysis of CDJ3 and CDJ4 from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii revealed that both proteins are weakly expressed and appear to be localized to the stroma and to thylakoid membranes respectively. The low transcript levels of the CDJ3 and CDJ4 genes declined even further in the initial phase of heat shock, but CDJ3 transcript levels strongly increased after a dark-to-light shift. Accordingly, the Arabidopsis orthologue of CDJ5 was also found to be light-inducible and to be under strong circadian control. CDJ3 and CDJ4 proteins could both be expressed in Escherichia coli and had redox-active Fe–S clusters. In vitro cross-linking studies demonstrated that CDJ3 and CDJ4 interact with chloroplast ATP-bound HSP70B (heat-shock protein 70B), presumably as dimers, and immunoprecipitation studies showed that CDJ3/4 were also in a complex with HSP70B in Chlamydomonas cell extracts. Finally, CDJ3 was found in complexes with apparent molecular masses of approx. 550–2800 kDa, which appeared to contain RNA. We speculate that the CDJ3–5 proteins might represent redox switches that act by recruiting HSP70B for the reorganization of regulatory protein complexes.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (11) ◽  
pp. e0242516
Author(s):  
Sebastian Y. Müller ◽  
Nicholas E. Matthews ◽  
Adrian A. Valli ◽  
David C. Baulcombe

Small (s)RNAs play crucial roles in the regulation of gene expression and genome stability across eukaryotes where they direct epigenetic modifications, post-transcriptional gene silencing, and defense against both endogenous and exogenous viruses. It is known that Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a well-studied unicellular green algae species, possesses sRNA-based mechanisms that are distinct from those of land plants. However, definition of sRNA loci and further systematic classification is not yet available for this or any other algae. Here, using data-driven machine learning approaches including Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) and clustering, we have generated a comprehensively annotated and classified sRNA locus map for C. reinhardtii. This map shows some common characteristics with higher plants and animals, but it also reveals distinct features. These results are consistent with the idea that there was diversification in sRNA mechanisms after the evolutionary divergence of algae from higher plant lineages.


2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (42) ◽  
pp. 21246-21255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liangliang Shen ◽  
Zihui Huang ◽  
Shenghai Chang ◽  
Wenda Wang ◽  
Jingfen Wang ◽  
...  

Photosystem II (PSII) in the thylakoid membranes of plants, algae, and cyanobacteria catalyzes light-induced oxidation of water by which light energy is converted to chemical energy and molecular oxygen is produced. In higher plants and most eukaryotic algae, the PSII core is surrounded by variable numbers of light-harvesting antenna complex II (LHCII), forming a PSII–LHCII supercomplex. In order to harvest energy efficiently at low–light-intensity conditions under water, a complete PSII–LHCII supercomplex (C2S2M2N2) of the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (Cr) contains more antenna subunits and pigments than the dominant PSII–LHCII supercomplex (C2S2M2) of plants. The detailed structure and energy transfer pathway of the Cr-PSII–LHCII remain unknown. Here we report a cryoelectron microscopy structure of a complete, C2S2M2N2-type PSII–LHCII supercomplex from C. reinhardtii at 3.37-Å resolution. The results show that the Cr-C2S2M2N2 supercomplex is organized as a dimer, with 3 LHCII trimers, 1 CP26, and 1 CP29 peripheral antenna subunits surrounding each PSII core. The N-LHCII trimer partially occupies the position of CP24, which is present in the higher-plant PSII–LHCII but absent in the green alga. The M trimer is rotated relative to the corresponding M trimer in plant PSII–LHCII. In addition, some unique features were found in the green algal PSII core. The arrangement of a huge number of pigments allowed us to deduce possible energy transfer pathways from the peripheral antennae to the PSII core.


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