Abstract
Arising from J. E. Kravchenko, I. B. Rogozin, E. V. Koonin & P. M. Chumakov Nature 436, 735–739 (2005); doi:10.1038/nature0384810.1038/nature03848
Mitochondria are involved in a variety of metabolic processes and one of their main functions is to perform oxidative phosphorylation1,2, which requires a crosstalk between the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes to accomplish coordinated gene expression3,4. Splice variants of the mitochondrial RNA polymerase gene (Polrmt) have been reported to encode a nuclear RNA polymerase isoform (spRNAP-IV), which is thought to facilitate this coordination by transcribing a specific subset of nuclear genes5,6,7. Here we report that analysis of Polrmt gene expression, subcellular fractionation and fluorescence microscopy do not support the existence of a nuclear POLRMT isoform in mouse and human cells, and that conditional knockout of Polrmt does not affect expression of the nuclear genes previously reported to be transcribed by spRNAP-IV. We thus conclude that POLRMT has an exclusive mitochondrial role and that it is absolutely required for expression of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in mammalian mitochondria.
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C.Ku. did microscopic analysis; B.R., D.M., M.M. and A.M. helped with experimental work and were involved in project planning; C.Ko. performed mouse breedings; M.F. produced the recombinant POLRMT protein used for antibody production; and I.K. performed experimental work, project planning, data analysis and wrote the manuscript together with N.-G.L.
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Kühl, I., Kukat, C., Ruzzenente, B. et al. POLRMT does not transcribe nuclear genes. Nature 514, E7–E11 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13690
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13690
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