Polysomal-mRNA Extraction from Arabidopsis by Sucrose-gradient Separation

Abstract

mRNAs surrounded by polysomes are ready for translation into proteins (Warner et al., 1963); these mRNAs are defined as polysomal-mRNAs (Mustroph et al., 2009). The process is affected by various growth conditions or surrounding situations. Microarray analysis is a powerful tool for detecting genome-wide gene expression. Therefore, using polysomal-mRNAs for microarray analysis can reflect the gene translation information (the translatome) under different developmental stages or environmental conditions from eukaryotes. Polysomal-mRNAs can be collected from the polysomal fraction by sucrose-gradient separation for further quantitative PCR or microarray assay. We modified a protocol (Mustroph et al., 2009) for collecting polysomal-mRNAs via sucrose-gradient separation to eliminate monosomal-mRNA contamination from pLAT52:HF:RPL18 Arabidopsis. This transgenic Arabidopsis uses a pollen-specific promoter (ProLAT52) to generate epitope-tagged polysomal-RNA complexes that could be purified with a specific antigen (Lin et al., 2014). The polysomal-mRNAs we obtained via sucrose-gradient separation and antibody purification underwent in vivo translation in pollen tubes grown from self-pollinated gynoecia of Arabidopsis thaliana.