Insights into the conservation and diversification of the molecular functions of YTHDF proteins

by Daniel Flores-T éllez, Mathias Due Tankmar, Sören von Bülow, Junyu Chen, Kresten Lindorff-Larsen, Peter Brodersen, Laura Arribas-Hernández YT521-B homology (YTH) domain proteins act as readers ofN6-methyladenosine (m6A) in mRNA. Members of the YTHDF clade determine properties of m6A-containing mRNAs in the cytoplasm. Vertebrates encode three YTHDF proteins whose possible functional specialization is debated. In land plants, the YTHDF clade has expanded from one member in basal lineages to eleven so-called EVOLUTIONARILY CONSERVED C-TERMINAL REGION1-11 (ECT1-11) proteins inArabidopsis thaliana, named after the conserved YTH domain placed behind a long N-terminal intrinsically disordered region (IDR).ECT2,ECT3 andECT4 show genetic redundancy in stimulation of primed stem cell division, but the origin and implications of YTHDF expansion in higher plants are unknown, as it is unclear whether it involves acquisition of fundamentally different molecular properties, in particular of their divergent IDRs. Here, we use functional complementation ofect2/ect3/ect4 mutants to test whether different YTHDF proteins can perform the same function when similarly expressed in leaf primordia. We show that stimulation of primordial cell division relies on an ancestral molecular function of the m6A-YTHDF axis in land plants that is present in bryophytes and is conserved over YTHDF diversification, as it appears in all major clades of YTHDF proteins in flowering plants. Importantly, althou...
Source: PLoS Genetics - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Source Type: research