Cells (Jan 2022)

Revisiting the Non-Coding Nature of Pospiviroids

  • Konstantina Katsarou,
  • Charith Raj Adkar-Purushothama,
  • Emilios Tassios,
  • Martina Samiotaki,
  • Christos Andronis,
  • Purificación Lisón,
  • Christoforos Nikolaou,
  • Jean-Pierre Perreault,
  • Kriton Kalantidis

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/cells11020265
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 2
p. 265

Abstract

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Viroids are small, circular, highly structured pathogens that infect a broad range of plants, causing economic losses. Since their discovery in the 1970s, they have been considered as non-coding pathogens. In the last few years, the discovery of other RNA entities, similar in terms of size and structure, that were shown to be translated (e.g., cirRNAs, precursors of miRNA, RNA satellites) as well as studies showing that some viroids are located in ribosomes, have reignited the idea that viroids may be translated. In this study, we used advanced bioinformatic analysis, in vitro experiments and LC-MS/MS to search for small viroid peptides of the PSTVd. Our results suggest that in our experimental conditions, even though the circular form of PSTVd is found in ribosomes, no produced peptides were identified. This indicates that the presence of PSTVd in ribosomes is most probably not related to peptide production but rather to another unknown function that requires further study.

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