[Frontier Leaders] Lost in translation: Towards understanding the long-distance transport of messenger RNAs in plants

Title: Lost in translation: Towards understanding the long-distance transport of messenger RNAs in plants

Speaker: Friedrich Kragler, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Golm Germany

Abstract: In plants the phloem serves as a vascular transport conduit for mobile signals and nutritional molecules. Apart from sugars and hormones, also proteins and RNAs move to distant tissues modulating their growth and development. Different classes of endogenous RNAs have been identified as phloem- mobile such as small siRNAs, miRNAs, tRNAs, and large protein encoding messenger RNAs (mRNAs). Recent advances in our analysis of graft-mobile transcriptomes indicate that a surprisingly high number of mRNAs are delivered to distinct tissues such as flowers, leaves or roots suggesting a selective transport mechanism. Here, structural motifs and secondary m5C RNA modifications play a complex role in mediating mRNA transport. Our findings on grafted (=chimeric) plants imply that gene promoter activity (=expression) does not necessarily correlate with transcript and protein activity in a given cell-type. In summary, we provide evidence that mobile mRNAs i) have a dedicated transport pathway in plants, ii) are translated in receiving cells, iii) have a function in stabilizing genomic variability, and iv) may be necessary for directing plant growth.