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JXB Advance Access originally published online on March 5, 2008
Journal of Experimental Botany 2008 59(7):1625-1634; doi:10.1093/jxb/erm368
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© The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press [on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology]. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

SPECIAL ISSUE REVIEW PAPER

Rubisco gene expression in C4 plants

Minesh Patel and James O. Berry*

Department of Biologicial Sciences, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: camjob{at}buffalo.edu

In leaves of most C4 plants, ribulose 1,5 bisphosphate carboxylase (Rubisco) accumulates only in bundle sheath (bs) cells that surround the vascular centres, and not in mesophyll (mp) cells. It has been shown previously that in the C4 dicots amaranth and Flaveria bidentis, post-transcriptional control of mRNA translation and stability mediate the C4 expression patterns of genes encoding the large and small Rubisco subunits (chloroplast rbcL and nuclear RbcS, respectively). Translational control appears to regulate bs cell-specific Rubisco gene expression during early dicot leaf development, while control of mRNA stability appears to mediate bs-specific accumulation of RbcS and rbcL transcripts in mature leaves. Post-transcriptional control is also involved in the regulation of Rubisco gene expression by light, and in response to photosynthetic activity. Transgenic and transient expression studies in F. bidentis provide direct evidence for post-transcriptional control of bs cell-specific RbcS expression, which is mediated by the 5' and 3' untranslated regions (UTRs) of the mRNA. Comparisons of Rubisco gene expression in these dicots and in the monocot maize indicates possible commonalities in the regulation of RbcS and rbcL genes in these divergent C4 species. Now that the role of post-transcriptional regulation in C4 gene expression has been established, it is likely that future studies of mRNA–protein interactions will address long-standing questions about the establishment and maintenance of cell type-specificity in these plants. Some of these regulatory mechanisms may have ancestral origins in C3 species, through modification of pre-existing factors, or by the acquisition of novel C4 processes.

Key words: C4 dicots, leaf development, light, photosynthesis, post-transcriptional control, RbcS and rbcL genes, RNA stability, Rubisco large and small subunits, translational control

Received 9 October 2007; Revised 3 December 2007 Accepted 21 December 2007


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