Abstract
Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is an mRNA surveillance mechanism that recognizes mRNAs containing premature termination codons (PTCs) and targets them for degradation. Although major factors of NMD, namely UPF1, UPF2, and UPF3, have been highly conserved among eukaryotes, the mechanisms for recognizing PTC+ mRNAs are different. Missense mutant of Arabidopsis UPF1, lba1/atupf1-1 , exhibits pleiotropic phenotypic changes (1), and its disruption mutant is seedling lethal (2). In insects and animals, mRNAs with diverse structures, in addition to PTC+ mRNAs generated during splicing, are also targets of NMD. It is important to know natural targets of NMD to understand the mechanims for NMD and its role in growth and development. We identified putative targets of NMD by global transcriptome analysis of lba1/atupf1-1 (1) and atupf3-1 (3), and analyzed their structures.
(1) Plant J. 47; 49 (2006), (2) Plant Cell Physiol. 47; 572 (2006), (3) Plant J. 43; 530 (2005)
