Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012 Feb;78(3):259-73.
doi: 10.1007/s11103-011-9863-0. Epub 2011 Dec 7.

Coincident sequence-specific RNA degradation of linked transgenes in the plant genome

Megumi Kasai  1 , Maiko Koseki, Kazunori Goto, Chikara Masuta, Shiho Ishii, Roger P Hellens, Akito Taneda, Akira Kanazawa
Affiliations

Coincident sequence-specific RNA degradation of linked transgenes in the plant genome

Megumi Kasai et al. Plant Mol Biol. 2012 Feb.

Abstract

The expression of transgenes in plant genomes can be inhibited by either transcriptional gene silencing or posttranscriptional gene silencing (PTGS). Overexpression of the chalcone synthase-A (CHS-A) transgene triggers PTGS of CHS-A and thus results in loss of flower pigmentation in petunia. We previously demonstrated that epigenetic inactivation of CHS-A transgene transcription leads to a reversion of the PTGS phenotype. Although neomycin phosphotransferase II (nptII), a marker gene co-introduced into the genome with the CHS-A transgene, is not normally silenced in petunia, even when CHS-A is silenced, here we found that nptII was silenced in a petunia line in which CHS-A PTGS was induced, but not in the revertant plants that had no PTGS of CHS-A. Transcriptional activity, accumulation of short interfering RNAs, and restoration of mRNA level after infection with viruses that had suppressor proteins of gene silencing indicated that the mechanism for nptII silencing was posttranscriptional. Read-through transcripts of the CHS-A gene toward the nptII gene were detected. Deep-sequencing analysis revealed a striking difference between the predominant size class of small RNAs produced from the read-through transcripts (22 nt) and that from the CHS-A RNAs (21 nt). These results implicate the involvement of read-through transcription and distinct phases of RNA degradation in the coincident PTGS of linked transgenes and provide new insights into the destabilization of transgene expression.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Genes Dev. 2000 Nov 15;14(22):2869-80 - PubMed
    1. Plant Mol Biol. 2000 Jun;43(2-3):243-60 - PubMed
    1. Plant Mol Biol. 1996 Dec;32(6):1197-203 - PubMed
    1. Genes Dev. 2006 Apr 1;20(7):759-71 - PubMed
    1. Trends Plant Sci. 2008 Jul;13(7):317-28 - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources