Compensatory sequence variation between trans-species small RNAs and their target sites
Nathan R Johnson,
Claude W dePamphilis,
Michael J Axtell
Affiliations
Nathan R Johnson
Intercollege PhD Program in Plant Biology, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, United States; Department of Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, United States
Claude W dePamphilis
Intercollege PhD Program in Plant Biology, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, United States; Department of Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, United States
Intercollege PhD Program in Plant Biology, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, United States; Department of Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, United States
Trans-species small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) are delivered to host plants from diverse pathogens and parasites and can target host mRNAs. How trans-species sRNAs can be effective on diverse hosts has been unclear. Multiple species of the parasitic plant Cuscuta produce trans-species sRNAs that collectively target many host mRNAs. Confirmed target sites are nearly always in highly conserved, protein-coding regions of host mRNAs. Cuscuta trans-species sRNAs can be grouped into superfamilies that have variation in a three-nucleotide period. These variants compensate for synonymous-site variation in host mRNAs. By targeting host mRNAs at highly conserved protein-coding sites, and simultaneously expressing multiple variants to cover synonymous-site variation, Cuscuta trans-species sRNAs may be able to successfully target multiple homologous mRNAs from diverse hosts.
