Abstract
Two paralogous Arabidopsis dynamin-rerated proteins, DRP3A and DRP3B were reported to be involved in mitochondrial fission. DRP3A was also shown to be involved in peroxisomal fission. To elucidate the molecular and genetic relationship between DRP3A and DRP3B, we analyzed the molecular interaction between DRP3A and DRP3B, the detailed intracellular localization of DRP3A and DRP3B, and the morphology of mitochondria and peroxisomes in their T-DNA insertion mutants. Yeast two-hybrid assay suggested that DRP3A and DRP3B interacted with each other. The comparison of intracellular localization of the fluorescent fusions of DRP3A and DRP3B expressed by their own promoters suggested that these two proteins were co-localized. Moreover, the analysis of the mitochondrial and peroxisomal morphologies in drp3a, drp3b, drp3a/drp3b and their complementation lines indicated that DRP3A and DRP3B have similar functions that are related to mitochondrial fission, but have different functions that are related to peroxisomal fission.
