First published online July 11, 2006
Development 133, 1506e (2006)
© The Company of Biologists Limited
New function for oskar mRNA
Maternal proteins help to establish body axes in many developing organisms.
In Drosophila, the maternally encoded protein Oskar is responsible
for the formation of the posterior pole plasm in the egg and thus the
development of the adult's abdomen and germline. Jenny, Hachet and colleagues
now report that oskar mRNA has an additional, translation-independent
role in early Drosophila oogenesis (see
p. 2827). Classical
oskar mutants, which produce embryos that lack an abdomen and germ
cells, make oskar mRNA but no Oskar protein. The researchers describe
two new mutants in which little or no oskar mRNA is made. These
mutants are sterile because of an early arrest in oogenesis, but their
egg-less defect can be rescued by expression of the oskar 3'
untranslated region alone, indicating that oskar mRNA mediates this
early oskar function. The researchers suggest that oskar
mRNA might either sequester a negative regulator of oogenesis or provide a
scaffold on which the cytoplasmic complexes needed for oocyte development are
assembled.
Related articles in Development:
- A translation-independent role of oskar RNA in early Drosophila oogenesis
- Andreas Jenny, Olivier Hachet, Péter Závorszky, Anna Cyrklaff, Matthew D. J. Weston, Daniel St Johnston, Miklós Erdélyi, and Anne Ephrussi
Development 2006 133: 2827-2833.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
