Introns mediate post-transcriptional enhancement of nuclear gene expression in the green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

ABSTRACT: Efficient nuclear transgene expression in the green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is generally hindered by low transcription rates. Introns can increase transcript abundance by a process called Intron-Mediated Enhancement (IME) in this alga and has been broadly observed in other eukaryotes. However, the mechanisms of IME in microalgae are poorly understood. Here, we identified 33 native introns from highly expressed genes in C. reinhardtii selected from transcriptome studies as well as 13 non-native introns. We investigated their IME capacities and probed the mechanism of action by modification of splice sites, internal sequence motifs, and position within transgenes. Several introns were found to elicit strong IME and found to be broadly applicable in different expression constructs

SUBMITTER: Baier T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7419008 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature