Affiliations: 1) The Graduate Center, CUNY; 2) Hunter College, CUNY
Keywords: u. RNA binding proteins; w. stability/turnover
Across eukaryotes, nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is a vital cellular surveillance process. Its initial role was presumed to be mitigation of truncated proteins by degrading aberrant transcripts encoding for them. On an organismal level, NMD is necessary for proper growth and development but how this is accomplished remains poorly understood. Our studies in flies have found that efficient knockdown of various NMD factors results in embryonic lethality as well as perturbations of essential maternally-derived factors, including localized mRNAs necessary for body axis patterning. Moreover, these knockdowns result in improper germline cyst formation due to problems during early mitotic events initiated in the female germline stem cell niche. Taken together, our data suggest that Upf1 protein functions in regulating mRNA stability of transcripts necessary for both proper maternal embryonic axis patterning and germline development.