Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Innate, translation-dependent silencing of an invasive transposon in Arabidopsis

Stefan Oberlin, Rajendran Rajeswaran, Marieke Trasser, Verónica Barragán-Borrero, Michael A. Schon, Alexandra Plotnikova, Lukas Loncsek, Michael D. Nodine, Arturo Marí-Ordóñez, Olivier Voinnet
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.29.450179
Stefan Oberlin
1Department of Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, 8092, Switzerland
2Department of Microbiology and Immunology, UCSF Diabetes Center, University of California, San Francisco, USA
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Rajendran Rajeswaran
1Department of Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, 8092, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Marieke Trasser
3Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 1030, Austria
4Vienna BioCenter PhD Program, Doctoral School of the University of Vienna and Medical University of Vienna, Austria
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Verónica Barragán-Borrero
1Department of Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, 8092, Switzerland
3Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 1030, Austria
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Michael A. Schon
3Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 1030, Austria
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Alexandra Plotnikova
3Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 1030, Austria
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Lukas Loncsek
3Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 1030, Austria
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Michael D. Nodine
3Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 1030, Austria
5Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Wageningen University, Wageningen 6708 PB, The Netherlands
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Arturo Marí-Ordóñez
1Department of Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, 8092, Switzerland
3Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 1030, Austria
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: voinneto@ethz.ch arturo.mari-ordonez@gmi.oeaw.ac.at
Olivier Voinnet
1Department of Biology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, 8092, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: voinneto@ethz.ch arturo.mari-ordonez@gmi.oeaw.ac.at
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Co-evolution between hosts’ and parasites’ genomes shapes diverse pathways of acquired immunity based on silencing small (s)RNAs. In plants, sRNAs cause heterochromatinization, sequence-degeneration and, ultimately, loss-of-autonomy of most transposable elements (TEs). Recognition of newly-invasive plant TEs, by contrast, involves an innate antiviral-like silencing response. To investigate this response’s activation, we studied the single-copy element EVADÉ (EVD), one of few representatives of the large Ty1/Copia family able to proliferate in Arabidopsis when epigenetically-reactivated. In Ty1/Copia-elements, a short subgenomic mRNA (shGAG) provides the necessary excess of structural GAG protein over the catalytic components encoded by the full-length genomic flGAG-POL. We show here that the predominant cytosolic distribution of shGAG strongly favors its translation over mostly-nuclear flGAG-POL, during which an unusually intense ribosomal stalling event coincides precisely with the starting-point of sRNA production exclusively on shGAG. mRNA breakage occurring at this starting-point yields unconventional 5’OH RNA fragments that evade RNA-quality-control and concomitantly likely stimulate RNA-DEPENDENT-RNA-POLYMERASE-6 (RDR6) to initiate sRNA production. This hitherto-unrecognized “translation-dependent silencing” (TdS) is independent of codon-usage or GC-content and is not observed on TE remnants populating the Arabidopsis genome, consistent with their poor association, if any, with polysomes. We propose that TdS forms a primal defense against de novo invasive TEs that underlies their associated sRNA patterns.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted June 29, 2021.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Innate, translation-dependent silencing of an invasive transposon in Arabidopsis
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Innate, translation-dependent silencing of an invasive transposon in Arabidopsis
Stefan Oberlin, Rajendran Rajeswaran, Marieke Trasser, Verónica Barragán-Borrero, Michael A. Schon, Alexandra Plotnikova, Lukas Loncsek, Michael D. Nodine, Arturo Marí-Ordóñez, Olivier Voinnet
bioRxiv 2021.06.29.450179; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.29.450179
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Innate, translation-dependent silencing of an invasive transposon in Arabidopsis
Stefan Oberlin, Rajendran Rajeswaran, Marieke Trasser, Verónica Barragán-Borrero, Michael A. Schon, Alexandra Plotnikova, Lukas Loncsek, Michael D. Nodine, Arturo Marí-Ordóñez, Olivier Voinnet
bioRxiv 2021.06.29.450179; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.29.450179

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Plant Biology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4384)
  • Biochemistry (9610)
  • Bioengineering (7104)
  • Bioinformatics (24897)
  • Biophysics (12632)
  • Cancer Biology (9974)
  • Cell Biology (14373)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7966)
  • Ecology (12126)
  • Epidemiology (2067)
  • Evolutionary Biology (16002)
  • Genetics (10936)
  • Genomics (14756)
  • Immunology (9880)
  • Microbiology (23698)
  • Molecular Biology (9490)
  • Neuroscience (50924)
  • Paleontology (370)
  • Pathology (1541)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2687)
  • Physiology (4023)
  • Plant Biology (8674)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1511)
  • Synthetic Biology (2402)
  • Systems Biology (6444)
  • Zoology (1346)