Abstract
Genetic evidence indicates that plant-specific homologs of DNA-dependent RNA polymerase (Pol) II large subunits form Pol IV and Pol V complexes involved in small interfering RNA production and RNA-directed DNA methylation. Here we describe evidence that Pol V contains subunits shared with Pol II, but that RNA polymerase II subunit (RPB)-4 is missing from Pol V and that RPB5 is present as a Pol V–specific isomer, RPB5b. Pol V also has other proteins that are not present in Pol II, consistent with a role of this complex as an effector of silencing.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$189.00 per year
only $15.75 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Luo, J. & Hall, B.D. J. Mol. Evol. 64, 101–112 (2007).
Wierzbicki, A.T., Haag, J.R. & Pikaard, C.S. Cell 135, 635–648 (2008).
Herr, A.J., Jensen, M.B., Dalmay, T. & Baulcombe, D.C. Science 308, 118–120 (2005).
Onodera, Y. et al. Cell 120, 613–622 (2005).
Kanno, T. et al. Nat. Genet. 37, 761–765 (2005).
Mosher, R.A., Schwach, F., Studholme, D. & Baulcombe, D.C. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 105, 3145–3150 (2008).
Guilfoyle, T.J. Biochemistry 19, 5966–5972 (1980).
Larkin, R.M., Hagen, G. & Guilfoyle, T.J. Gene 231, 41–47 (1999).
Hock, J. et al. EMBO Rep. 8, 1052–1060 (2007).
Kyrpides, N.C., Woese, C.R. & Ouzounis, C.A. Trends Biochem. Sci. 21, 425–426 (1996).
El-Shami, M. et al. Genes Dev. 21, 2539–2544 (2007).
Huettel, B. et al. EMBO J. 25, 2828–2836 (2006).
Tan, Q., Prysak, M.H. & Woychik, N.A. Mol. Cell. Biol. 23, 3329–3338 (2003).
Armache, K.J., Kettenberger, H. & Cramer, P. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100, 6964–6968 (2003).
Larkin, R.M. & Guilfoyle, T.J. J. Biol. Chem. 273, 5631–5637 (1998).
Kato, H. et al. Science 309, 467–469 (2005).
Djupedal, I. et al. Genes Dev. 19, 2301–2306 (2005).
Acknowledgements
We thank T. Guilfoyle from the University of Missouri-Columbia for providing plant Pol II antibodies and helpful discussions. We thank M. Mann from the Max-Planck-Institut in Martinsried for hosting A.M.E.J. for the analysis of samples S4 and S5. We also thank Arabidopsis T-DNA mutant providers: The Salk Institute, GABI-Kat, the Wisconsin pDS/Lox Project and the Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre. L.H. was partly supported by an Overseas Research Students award and a Marie Curie EST Grant (504273). The Gatsby Charitable Foundation provided funding for this work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
D.C.B. and L.H. designed the experiments; L.H., A.M.E.J. and N.C.H. performed immunoprecipitation and MS experiments; K.P., I.S., H.V. and L.H. characterized mutant plants; D.C.B., L.H., A.M.E.J. and I.S. wrote the paper.
Corresponding author
Supplementary information
Supplementary Text and Figures
Supplementary Figures 1–11, Supplementary Tables 1–6 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 5969 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Huang, L., Jones, A., Searle, I. et al. An atypical RNA polymerase involved in RNA silencing shares small subunits with RNA polymerase II. Nat Struct Mol Biol 16, 91–93 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.1539
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.1539
This article is cited by
-
Roles of RNA silencing in viral and non-viral plant immunity and in the crosstalk between disease resistance systems
Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology (2022)
-
RNA-directed DNA methylation involves co-transcriptional small-RNA-guided slicing of polymerase V transcripts in Arabidopsis
Nature Plants (2018)
-
The developmental regulator PKL is required to maintain correct DNA methylation patterns at RNA-directed DNA methylation loci
Genome Biology (2017)
-
Papillae formation on trichome cell walls requires the function of the mediator complex subunit Med25
Plant Molecular Biology (2017)
-
Identification of RNA silencing components in soybean and sorghum
BMC Bioinformatics (2014)