ME31B globally represses maternal mRNAs by two distinct mechanisms during the Drosophila maternal-to-zygotic transition

Abstract
Data availability
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Abstract

In animal embryos, control of development is passed from exclusively maternal gene products to those encoded by the embryonic genome in a process referred to as the maternal-to-zygotic transition (MZT). We show that the RNA-binding protein, ME31B, binds to and represses the expression of thousands of maternal mRNAs during the Drosophila MZT. However, ME31B carries out repression in different ways during different phases of the MZT. Early, it represses translation while, later, its binding leads to mRNA destruction, most likely as a consequence of translational repression in the context of robust mRNA decay. In a process dependent on the PNG kinase, levels of ME31B and its partners, Cup and Trailer Hitch (TRAL), decrease by over 10-fold during the MZT, leading to a change in the composition of mRNA-protein complexes. We propose that ME31B is a global repressor whose regulatory impact changes based on its biological context.

Data availability

The following data sets were generated

1. Wang M
2. Ly M
3. Lugowski A
4. Laver JD
5. Lipshitz HD
6. Smibert CA
7. and Rissland OS
(2017) ME31B globally represses maternal mRNAs by two distinct mechanisms during the Drosophila maternal-to-zygotic transition
Publicly available at NCBI BioProject (Accession no: GSE98106).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?token=sbgbgimyrtexngh&acc=GSE98106

The following previously published data sets were used

(2016) mRNA Poly(A)-tail Changes Specified by Deadenylation Broadly Reshape Translation in Drosophila Oocytes and Early Embryos
Publicly available at NCBI BioProject (Accession no: GSE83616).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE83616

Article and author information

Author details

Miranda Wang

Molecular Medicine Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Michael Ly

Molecular Medicine Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Andrew Lugowski

Molecular Medicine Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
John D Laver

Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Howard D Lipshitz

Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Craig A Smibert

Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Olivia S Rissland

Molecular Medicine Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada

For correspondence
olivia.rissland@gmail.com

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-2619-6019

Funding

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

Craig A Smibert
Olivia S Rissland

Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Howard D Lipshitz

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.