학술논문

NICOTIANAMINE SYNTHASE activity affects nucleolar iron accumulation and impacts rDNA silencing and RNA methylation in Arabidopsis.
Document Type
Article
Source
Journal of Experimental Botany. 8/17/2023, Vol. 74 Issue 15, p4384-4400. 17p.
Subject
*RNA methylation
*IRON
*GENE expression
*RNA modification & restriction
*RECOMBINANT DNA
*NUCLEOPHOSMIN
Language
ISSN
0022-0957
Abstract
In plant cells, a large pool of iron (Fe) is contained in the nucleolus, as well as in chloroplasts and mitochondria. A central determinant for intracellular distribution of Fe is nicotianamine (NA) generated by NICOTIANAMINE SYNTHASE (NAS). Here, we used Arabidopsis thaliana plants with disrupted NAS genes to study the accumulation of nucleolar iron and understand its role in nucleolar functions and more specifically in rRNA gene expression. We found that nas124 triple mutant plants, which contained lower quantities of the iron ligand NA, also contained less iron in the nucleolus. This was concurrent with the expression of normally silenced rRNA genes from nucleolar organizer regions 2 (NOR2). Notably, in nas234 triple mutant plants, which also contained lower quantities of NA, nucleolar iron and rDNA expression were not affected. In contrast, in both nas124 and nas234 , specific RNA modifications were differentially regulated in a genotype dependent manner. Taken together, our results highlight the impact of specific NAS activities in RNA gene expression. We discuss the interplay between NA and nucleolar iron with rDNA functional organization and RNA methylation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]