PUBLICATION

RNA polymerase II subunit D is essential for zebrafish development

Authors
Maeta, M., Kataoka, M., Nishiya, Y., Ogino, K., Kashima, M., Hirata, H.
ID
ZDB-PUB-200810-20
Date
2020
Source
Scientific Reports   10: 13213 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Hirata, Hiromi
Keywords
none
MeSH Terms
  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Animals
  • Cell Death
  • Embryonic Development/physiology
  • Humans
  • Mutation
  • Protein Subunits/genetics
  • Protein Subunits/physiology
  • RNA Polymerase II/genetics
  • RNA Polymerase II/physiology*
  • RNA, Messenger/metabolism
  • Sequence Alignment
  • Zebrafish/embryology*
  • Zebrafish/genetics
PubMed
32764610 Full text @ Sci. Rep.
Abstract
DNA-directed RNA polymerase II (pol II) is composed of ten core and two dissociable subunits. The dissociable subcomplex is a heterodimer of Rpb4/Polr2d and Rpb7/Polr2g, which are encoded by RPB4/polr2d and RPB7/polr2g genes, respectively. Functional studies of Rpb4/Polr2d in yeast have revealed that Rpb4 plays a role primarily in pol II-mediated RNA synthesis and partly in various mRNA regulations including pre-mRNA splicing, nuclear export of mRNAs and decay of mRNAs. Although Rpb4 is evolutionally highly conserved from yeast to human, it is dispensable for survival in budding yeast S. cerevisiae, whereas it was indispensable for survival in fission yeast S. pombe, slime molds and fruit fly. To elucidate whether Rpb4/Polr2d is necessary for development and survival of vertebrate animals, we generated polr2d-deficient zebrafish. The polr2d mutant embryos exhibited progressive delay of somitogenesis at the onset of 11 h postfertilization (hpf). Mutant embryos then showed increased cell death at 15 hpf, displayed hypoplasia such as small eye and cardiac edema by 48 hpf and prematurely died by 60 hpf. In accordance with these developmental defects, our RT-qPCR revealed that expression of housekeeping and zygotic genes was diminished in mutants. Collectively, we conclude that Rpb4/Polr2d is indispensable for vertebrate development.
Genes / Markers
Figures
Show all Figures
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping