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First published online June 16, 2009; 10.1105/tpc.108.063412 The Plant Cell 21:1762-1768 (2009) © 2009 American Society of Plant Biologists Biochemical Evidence for Translational Repression by Arabidopsis MicroRNAs[W]
a Aix-Marseille Université, Laboratoire de Génétique et Biophysique des Plantes, Marseille, F-13009, France 2 Address correspondence to christophe.robaglia{at}univmed.fr.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression posttranscriptionally through RNA silencing, a mechanism conserved in eukaryotes. Prevailing models entail most animal miRNAs affecting gene expression by blocking mRNA translation and most plant miRNAs, triggering mRNA cleavage. Here, using polysome fractionation in Arabidopsis thaliana, we found that a portion of mature miRNAs and ARGONAUTE1 (AGO1) is associated with polysomes, likely through their mRNA target. We observed enhanced accumulation of several distinct miRNA targets at both the mRNA and protein levels in an ago1 hypomorphic mutant. By contrast, translational repression, but not cleavage, persisted in transgenic plants expressing the slicing-inhibitor 2b protein from Cucumber mosaic virus. In agreement, we found that the polysome association of miR168 was lost in ago1 but maintained in 2b plants, indicating that translational repression is correlated with the presence of miRNAs and AGO1 in polysomes. This work provides direct biochemical evidence for a translational component in the plant miRNA pathway.
RNA silencing regulates gene expression in many eukaryotic organisms through the activity of distinct classes of endogenous small RNAs (sRNAs). Among these, 19- to 25-bp microRNAs (miRNAs) and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are processed from noncoding double-stranded RNA precursors by RNases in the Dicer-like (DCL) family. One strand of the sRNAs duplex is then loaded into an Argonaute (AGO) protein to form a silencing effector complex. These ribonucleoprotein complexes, also called miRNPs or siRNPs, target and postrancriptionally silence mRNAs that are partly or fully complementary to the loaded sRNA. In plants, most known miRNAs interact with fully or near-fully complementary target mRNAs at a single site usually located in the protein coding sequence (Bartel, 2004 Nonetheless, biochemical evidence for interactions between the RNA silencing and translation machinery is still missing in plants. In this work, we show that several miRNAs are associated with polysomes. In addition, we show that AGO1, which is known to confer slicer activity in plants, is also associated with polysomes. By comparative analysis of miRNA target accumulation and translation in an ago1 mutant and in transgenic plants expressing the slicing inhibitor 2b protein from Cucumber mosaic virus (FNY-2b), we reveal that translational repression and miRNA polysomal association can be maintained in 2b plants independently of slicer inhibition. Our results suggest that AGO1 has distinct functions in target cleavage and translational repression and that target mRNAs can be differentially affected by these activities.
AGO1-miRNPs Are Associated with Active Polysomes in Arabidopsis We first investigated the subcellular distribution of several highly expressed miRNAs (Backman et al., 2008
Next, we sought to establish whether the translatability of the target RNA could influence miRNA association with polysomes. The miRNAs miR173 and miR390 target the noncoding (i.e., not translated) Trans-ActingSiRNA precursor 1/2 and TAS3 RNA precursors, respectively, for cleavage, which triggers the subsequent DCL4-dependent phased processing of trans-acting siRNAs (Allen et al., 2005
The Association of miRNPs with Polysomes Depends on mRNA Binding The cosedimentation of miRNPs with polysomes suggests that miRNPs are able to interact with ribosomes or that there is a direct interaction between loaded miRNAs and complementary regions within their mRNA targets. To distinguish between these possibilities, cytoplasmic extracts were digested with micrococcal nuclease. Under these conditions, ribosomes remain intact, but exposed regions of mRNA are degraded (Maroney et al., 2006
The Association of miRNAs with Polysomes Is Linked to Translational Repression We used ago1-25 and 2b transgenic plants with altered AGO1 activity to explore the functional significance of the association of miRNPs with polysomes. ago1-25 is a fertile, hypomorphic mutant impaired in posttranscriptional RNA silencing and virus resistance due to a point mutation in ago1 (Morel et al., 2002 The ago1-25 and 2b transgenic plants were first analyzed for the association of miRNAs with polysomes. We found that miR168 association with polysomes is lost in ago1-25 mutants but persisted in 2b overexpressing plants (Figure 5 ). These results indicate that the association of miRNAs with polysomes is dependent on AGO1 activities that are differentially affected in ago1-25 and 2b plants. We also found that the proportion of miR398 associated with polysomes was generally less than for miR168. This suggests that the level of miRNA association with polysomes is dependent not only on AGO1 activity but also on the nature of the miRNA itself. In both ago1-25 and 2b plants, the distribution of miR168 and miR398 was found to shift toward low molecular weight fractions, further illustrating a link between RNA silencing and the translational machinery.
Having established the differential behavior of miRNAs in ago1-25 and 2b transgenic plants, we then investigated the mRNA and protein accumulation of three distinct miRNA targets for which antibodies are available: AGO1, CIP4, and CSD2, which are repressed by miR168 (Vaucheret et al., 2004
Altogether, these results highlight the contrasting effects of the 2b protein and ago1-25 mutation on miRNA activities by suggesting that the translational repression activity of the miRNA/AGO1 effector complex is more active in 2b transgenic plants than in the ago1-25 hypomorphic mutants. In addition, our data suggest that the balance between RNA slicing and translational repression in wild-type plants is tuned for each mRNA/miRNA pair.
We have shown that a fraction of several miRNAs is associated with polysomes in Arabidopsis cell culture and seedlings. This association appears to be specific to mature miRNAs because the passenger strand miR168* was only found within nonpolysomal, untranslated fractions (Figure 1). Moreover, we found that the association of miRNAs with polysomes may depend on the translatability of the target RNA. For example, the AGO7/miR390 complex, dedicated for slicing TAS3 noncoding RNA precursors, is not associated with polysomes. We did find weak polysomal association for miR173, which coordinates the phased processing of TAS1/2 noncoding precursors (Figure 1). This weak association could be because TAS1/2 precursors entering the cytoplasm are capped and contain an AUG codon and therefore might be transiently recognized by the translational machinery.
We found that the majority of AGO1 protein is within high molecular weight polysomal fractions (Figure 3). This suggests that miRNA that sediment in low molecular weight fractions of the gradient are not associated with AGO1 or else that they somehow engage with a small AGO1 fraction in an alternative mode of regulation. In fact, we found that a substantial portion of several miRNA target transcripts partition to untranslated fractions in the same manner as the miRNA themselves (see Supplemental Figure 1 online). The copartitioning of miRNAs and targets raises the possibility that the targets may be deployed into multiple effector complexes for distinct types of outputs, possibly allowing subcellular-level regulation of mRNA stability and translation. Indeed, the cytoplasm contains several compartments that are not surrounded by membranes and are composed of ribonucleoprotein aggregates, including processing (P)-bodies and stress granules. In animals, some of these complexes are associated with components of the RNA silencing machinery (Leung et al., 2006
The contrasting results with 2b transgenic and ago1-25 mutant plants echo those of Brodersen et al. (2008)
Plant Material Arabidopsis thaliana mutant ago1-25 and FNY-2b–overexpressing plants were described previously (Morel et al., 2002
Preparation of Arabidopsis Cytoplasmic Extracts and Sucrose Density Gradient Analysis For puromycin treatment, cytoplasmic extracts were prepared in a modified polysome buffer (100 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.4, 50 mM KCl, 25 mM MgCl2, and 0.5% [v/v] Nonidet P-40). After centrifugation, supernatant was incubated with 0.25 mg.mL–1 of puromycin dihydrochloride from Streptomyces alboniger (Sigma-Aldrich) for 30 min at 37°C and loaded on a sucrose gradient for sedimentation as previously described. For micrococcal nuclease treatment, cytoplasmic extracts were prepared in a modified polysome buffer (100 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.4, 50 mM KCl, 25 mM MgCl2, 18 µM cycloheximide, 15.5 µM chloramphenicol, and 0.5% [v/v] Nonidet P-40). After centrifugation, supernantant was incubated with 0.75 units·µL–1 of micrococcal nuclease (Biolabs) for 20 min at room temperature and loaded on a sucrose gradient for sedimentation as previously described.
RNA Analysis The following primers were used for amplification: AGO1, forward 5'-AAGGAGGTCGAGGAGGGTATGG-3'/reverse 5'-GCTGAGAAGACACCGCTTGATAAG-3'; SPL10, forward 5'-GGTGTGGGAGAATGCTCAGGAG-3'/reverse 5'-GAGTGTGTTTGATCCCTTGTGAATCC-3'; ACT2, forward 5'-GCACCCTGTTCTTCTTACCG-3'/reverse 5'-AACCCTCGTAGATTGGCACA-3'; ARF17, forward 5'-AGCACCTGATCCAAGTCCTTCTATG-3'/reverse 5'-TGGTGAATAGCTGGGGAGGATTTC-3'; PPR, forward 5'-CAACTCTCTCATTACTCGCCTTTTCC-3'/reverse 5'-TGCCCCTCTTTCCCATACACATC-3'; CIP4, forward 5'-CAGTGAGTTGACATCTACTCCAGTTAC-3'/reverse 5'-CGTTCACAATTTCTCTTGAAGC-3'; CSD2, forward 5'-ACACGGAGCTCCAGAAGATG-3'/reverse 5'-TCAAGCCAATCACACCACAT-3'. Quantifications were performed on a Bio-Rad IQcycler using the IQ SYBR Green supermix during 40 cycles. Target quantifications were performed with the same primers as above.
Protein Analysis
Accession Numbers
Supplemental Data
We thank Mathew Lewsey and John Carr for providing 2b overexpressing lines, Hervé Vaucheret for providing ago1-25 seeds, and Bruce Veit and Ben Field for careful correction of the manuscript. E.L. was supported by a Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique-Région Provence Côte d'Azur doctoral fellowship, and R.S. and E.D. were supported by Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships, respectively. This work was supported by Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Aix-Marseille University, and the Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur Région.
1 Current address: Unite de Nutrition Azotee des Plantes, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, 78026 Versailles Cedex, France. The author responsible for distribution of materials integral to the findings presented in this article in accordance with the policy described in the Instructions for Authors (www.plantcell.org) is: Christophe Robaglia (christophe.robaglia{at}univmed.fr).
[W] Online version contains Web-only data. www.plantcell.org/cgi/doi/10.1105/tpc.108.063412 Received September 25, 2008; Revision received May 12, 2009. accepted June 3, 2009.
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