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Nucleic Acids Research Advance Access originally published online on August 2, 2008
Nucleic Acids Research 2008 36(16):5152-5165; doi:10.1093/nar/gkn492
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Nucleic Acids Research, 2008, Vol. 36, No. 16 5152-5165
© 2008 The Author(s)
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Molecular Biology

A member of the Whirly family is a multifunctional RNA- and DNA-binding protein that is essential for chloroplast biogenesis

Jana Prikryl1, Kenneth P. Watkins1, Giulia Friso2, Klaas J. van Wijk2 and Alice Barkan1,*

1Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97405 and 2Department of Plant Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +1 541 346 5145; Fax: +1 541 346 5891; Email: abarkan{at}uoregon.edu

Received June 18, 2008. Revised July 14, 2008. Accepted July 16, 2008.

‘Whirly’ proteins comprise a plant-specific protein family whose members have been described as DNA-binding proteins that influence nuclear transcription and telomere maintenance, and that associate with nucleoids in chloroplasts and mitochondria. We identified the maize WHY1 ortholog among proteins that coimmunoprecipitate with CRS1, which promotes the splicing of the chloroplast atpF group II intron. ZmWHY1 localizes to the chloroplast stroma and to the thylakoid membrane, to which it is tethered by DNA. Genome-wide coimmunoprecipitation assays showed that ZmWHY1 in chloroplast extract is associated with DNA from throughout the plastid genome and with a subset of plastid RNAs that includes atpF transcripts. Furthermore, ZmWHY1 binds both RNA and DNA in vitro. A severe ZmWhy1 mutant allele conditions albino seedlings lacking plastid ribosomes; these exhibit the altered plastid RNA profile characteristic of ribosome-less plastids. Hypomorphic ZmWhy1 mutants exhibit reduced atpF intron splicing and a reduced content of plastid ribosomes; aberrant 23S rRNA metabolism in these mutants suggests that a defect in the biogenesis of the large ribosomal subunit underlies the ribosome deficiency. However, these mutants contain near normal levels of chloroplast DNA and RNAs, suggesting that ZmWHY1 is not directly required for either DNA replication or for global plastid transcription.


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 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
T. S. Kroeger, K. P. Watkins, G. Friso, K. J. van Wijk, and A. Barkan
A plant-specific RNA-binding domain revealed through analysis of chloroplast group II intron splicing
PNAS, March 17, 2009; 106(11): 4537 - 4542.
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