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A pentatricopeptide repeat protein is essential for RNA editing in chloroplasts

Nature volume 433, pages 326–330 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

RNA editing is a process of RNA maturation involved in the insertion, deletion or modification of nucleotides1. In organellar transcripts of higher plants, specific cytidine residues are converted into uridine residues. In many cases, editing results in the restoration of conserved amino acid residues, a process that is essential for protein function in plastids2,3. Despite the technical breakthrough in establishing systems in vivo4 and in vitro5 for analysing RNA editing, its machinery still remains to be identified in higher plants. Here we introduce a genetic approach and report the discovery of a gene responsible for the specific RNA editing event in the chloroplast.

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Figure 1: Characterization of crr4 mutants.
Figure 2: Structure of CRR4.
Figure 3: Analysis of RNA editing in the ndhD initiation codon.
Figure 4: Relationship between the CRR4 expression level and the extent of RNA editing.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Miyata and E. Habe for their technical assistance; T. Endo, G. Peltier and the late A. Watanabe for antibodies; and J. Obokata for suggestions. T. Shikanai was supported by grants from JSPS and Ministry of Education, Sports, Culture, Science and Technology, Japan.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Biological Sciences, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Ikoma, Nara, 630-0101, Japan

    Emi Kotera, Masao Tasaka & Toshiharu Shikanai

  2. Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyushu University, 812-8581, Fukuoka, Japan

    Toshiharu Shikanai

Authors
  1. Emi Kotera
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  2. Masao Tasaka
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  3. Toshiharu Shikanai
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Correspondence to Toshiharu Shikanai.

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The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Figure S1

RNA protection assay. (GIF 47 kb)

Supplementary Figure Legend

Legend to accompany Supplementary Figure S1. (DOC 21 kb)

Supplementary Methods

This contains details of the methods for the quantitative analysis of RNA editing and the determination if RNA ends. (DOC 20 kb)

Supplementary Tables

Contains Supplementary Tables S1-S3. Supplementary Table S1 details the efficiency of the RNA editing in ndhD initiation codon. Supplementary Table S2 details the RNA editing extents in ndh genes. Supplementary Table S3 lists the oligonucleotides used in the study. (DOC 42 kb)

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Kotera, E., Tasaka, M. & Shikanai, T. A pentatricopeptide repeat protein is essential for RNA editing in chloroplasts. Nature 433, 326–330 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03229

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