Diet-dependent depletion of queuosine in tRNAs in Caenorhabditis elegans does not lead to a developmental block.
J Biosci
;
2007 Jun; 32(4): 747-54
Article
in English
| IMSEAR
| ID: sea-110979
ABSTRACT
Queuosine (Q), a hypermodified nucleoside,occurs at the wobble position of transfer RNAs (tRNAs)with GUN anticodons. In eubacteria, absence of Q affects messenger RNA (mRNA) translation and reduces the virulence of certain pathogenic strains. In animal cells,changes in the abundance of Q have been shown to correlate with diverse phenomena including stress tolerance, cell proliferation and tumour growth but the function of Q in animals is poorly understood. Animals are thought to obtain Q (or its analogues) as a micronutrient from dietary sources such as gut micro flora. However,the difficulty of maintaining animals under bacteria-free conditions on Q-deficient diets has severely hampered the study of Q metabolism and function in animals. In this study,we show that as in higher animals, tRNAs in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans are modified by Q and its sugar derivatives. When the worms were fed on Q-deficient Escherichia coli, Q modification was absent from the worm tRNAs suggesting that C.elegans lacks a de novo pathway of Q biosynthesis. The inherent advantages of C.elegans as a model organism, and the simplicity of conferring a Q-deficient phenotype on it make it an ideal system to investigate the function of Q modification in tRNA.
Full text:
Available
Index:
IMSEAR (South-East Asia)
Main subject:
Mass Spectrometry
/
RNA, Transfer
/
Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid
/
Caenorhabditis elegans
/
Diet
/
Animals
/
Nucleoside Q
Language:
English
Journal:
J Biosci
Year:
2007
Type:
Article
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