Diet-dependent depletion of queuosine in tRNAs in Caenorhabditis elegans does not lead to a developmental block

Gaur, Rahul and Bjork, Glenn R and Tuck, Simon and Varshney, Umesh (2007) Diet-dependent depletion of queuosine in tRNAs in Caenorhabditis elegans does not lead to a developmental block. In: Journal of Biosciences, 32 (4). pp. 747-754.

PDF diet.pdf - Published Version Restricted to Registered users only Download (207Kb) | Request a copy

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 microflora. 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.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Indian Academy of Sciences.
Keywords:	Escherichia coli B105;mannosylated queuosine (manQ);Q metabolism.
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Microbiology & Cell Biology
Date Deposited:	17 Dec 2008 11:51
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:53
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in/id/eprint/16740

Actions (login required)

View Item