Nucleic Acids Research Advance Access originally published online on April 25, 2007
Nucleic Acids Research 2007 35(10):3306-3321; doi:10.1093/nar/gkm200
Nucleic Acids Research, 2007, Vol. 35, No. 10 3306-3321
© 2007 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.
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A bona fide La protein is required for embryogenesis in Arabidopsis thaliana
1CNRS UMR6547 GEEM, Université Blaise Pascal, 63177 Aubière, France and 2CNRS UMR5096 LGDP, Université de Perpignan Via Domitia, 66860 Perpignan, France
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: + 33 (0)4 73407408; Fax: + 33 (0)4 73407777; Email: cecile.antonelli{at}univ-bpclermont.fr
Received March 7, 2007. Revised March 21, 2007. Accepted March 21, 2007.
Searches in the Arabidopsis thaliana genome using the La motif as query revealed the presence of eight La or La-like proteins. Using structural and phylogenetic criteria, we identified two putative genuine La proteins (At32 and At79) and showed that both are expressed throughout plant development but at different levels and under different regulatory conditions. At32, but not At79, restores Saccharomyces cerevisiae La nuclear functions in non-coding RNAs biogenesis and is able to bind to plant 3'-UUU-OH RNAs. We conclude that these La nuclear functions are conserved in Arabidopsis and supported by At32, which we renamed as AtLa1. Consistently, AtLa1 is predominantly localized to the plant nucleoplasm and was also detected in the nucleolar cavity. The inactivation of AtLa1 in Arabidopsis leads to an embryonic-lethal phenotype with deficient embryos arrested at early globular stage of development. In addition, mutant embryonic cells display a nucleolar hypertrophy suggesting that AtLa1 is required for normal ribosome biogenesis. The identification of two distantly related proteins with all structural characteristics of genuine La proteins suggests that these factors evolved to a certain level of specialization in plants. This unprecedented situation provides a unique opportunity to dissect the very different aspects of this crucial cellular activity.
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