Spatial and temporal control of RNA stability

doi:10.1073/pnas.111145698

Spatial and temporal control of RNA stability

^*Program in Developmental Biology, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, and ^‡Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, University of Toronto, 555 University Avenue, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada

Abstract

Maternally encoded RNAs and proteins program the early development of all animals. A subset of the maternal transcripts is eliminated from the embryo before the midblastula transition. In certain cases, transcripts are protected from degradation in a subregion of the embryonic cytoplasm, thus resulting in transcript localization. Maternal factors are sufficient for both the degradation and protection components of transcript localization. Cis-acting elements in the RNAs convert transcripts progressively (i) from inherently stable to unstable and (ii) from uniformly degraded to locally protected. Similar mechanisms are likely to act later in development to restrict certain classes of transcripts to particular cell types within somatic cell lineages. Functions of transcript degradation and protection are discussed.

Footnotes

↵ † Present address: Department of Human Genetics, University of Utah, 15 North 2030 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-5331.
↵ § To whom reprint requests should be addressed. E-mail: lipshitz{at}sickkids.on.ca.
This paper was presented at the National Academy of Sciences colloquium, “Molecular Kinesis in Cellular Function and Plasticity,” held December 7–9, 2000, at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center in Irvine, CA.
Abbreviations:

MBT,

midblastula transition;

UTR,

untranslated region;

HDE,

Hsp83 degradation element