Overexpression of a natural chloroplast-encoded antisense RNA in tobacco destabilizes 5S rRNA and retards plant growth.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The roles of non-coding RNAs in regulating gene expression have been extensively studied in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, however few reports exist as to their roles in organellar gene regulation. Evidence for accumulation of natural antisense RNAs (asRNAs) in chloroplasts comes from the expressed sequence tag database and cDNA libraries, while functional data have been largely obtained from artificial asRNAs. In this study, we used Nicotiana tabacum to investigate the effect on sense strand transcripts of overexpressing a natural chloroplast asRNA, AS5, which is complementary to the region which encodes the 5S rRNA and tRNAArg.

Results

AS5-overexpressing (AS5ox) plants obtained by chloroplast transformation exhibited slower growth and slightly pale green leave

SUBMITTER: Hotto AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3017836 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature