Sucrose-sensing and its contribution to carbon/nitrogen metabolic regulation in plants

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K16159
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 44030:Plant molecular biology and physiology-related
• Research Institution: Hokkaido University
• Principal Investigator: Yamashita Yui 北海道大学, 農学研究院, 助教 (40803383)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: ショ糖 / 上流ORF / 転写後遺伝子発現制御

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Approximately half of the eukaryotic mRNAs contain upstream open reading frames (uORFs) as post-transcriptional regulation elements of gene expression. Arabidopsis S1-bZIP family transcription factor regulates sugar and amino acid metabolism in response to sucrose. All S1-bZIP family mRNA harbor uORF2, which have ability to sense intracellular sucrose concentration through ribosome stalling. In this study, sequence divergency of S1-bZIP family uORF2 was shown to be important for ribosome stalling efficiency. Ribosome stalling was shown to be critical for translational repression of the main ORF of all S1-bZIP family members in the cell. By focusing on sucrose and nitrogen availability, involvement of different types of post-transcriptional regulations to S1-bZIP family gene-expression was uncovered.

Free Research Field

植物分子生物学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

光合成産物として，そして植物細胞内での糖の輸送態としてのショ糖は，多くの植物生理学的応答に関与する重要な分子である。本研究によって，ショ糖感知の制御ユニットとしての上流ORFの機能の解明を通じて，遺伝子間でショ糖感知のアウトプットが異なることが示された。uORFによる転写後遺伝子発現制御の分子機構の解明に資するものである。また，ショ糖感知による遺伝子発現制御の多様性から，ショ糖の多様な生理学的意義の解明にもつながるものである。