CGM - Department Regulation and Compartmentalization of Cellular Functions
Translation of mitochondrial RNA in the yeast S. pombe
Team leader: N. BONNEFOY
Last update: 21-Feb-2012
Our team
Nathalie Bonnefoy, Staff Scientist, CNRS
Laurent Dujeancourt, Doctoral Student, state grant
Christopher J. Herbert, Staff Scientiste, CNRS
Cyrielle Sophie, Technician, CNRS
Address
CNRS
Centre de Génétique Moléculaire
Avenue de la Terrasse - Bât. 26
91198 GIF-SUR-YVETTE Cedex
FRANCE
Phone: 33 (0)1 69 82 31 75 - 31 78
Telecopy: 33 (0)1 69 82 31 60
Research themes
Our group is studying factors from the yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe acting in, or regulating the translation and metabolism of mitochondrial RNA. Mitochondria have their own translation system that is responsible for the synthesis of a few essential subunits of the respiratory complexes. Thus translation is a key step in mitochondrial gene expression and is affected in numerous human mitochondrial diseases.
S. pombe is a pertinent model to study mitochondrial translation, because it is (1) highly dependent on respiration for survival, (2) contains the same set of general translation factors as humans, and (3) like human cells, has a compact mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) encoding mitochondrial mRNAs (mt-mRNAs) with limited untranslated regions. These similarities suggest that S. pombe and mammalian mt-mRNAs could be translated using similar mechanisms and we have found several examples of cross-complementation of S. pombe mitochondrial translation mutants by human factors.
Our current interest focuses on two classes of factors: (1) translation factors involved in the translation of all mt-mRNAs, more specifically termination and mitochondrial ribosome recycling, and (2) factors controlling the metabolism and/or translation of specific mt-mRNAs. This includes PPR proteins (penta-tricopeptide repeats), which are generally RNA binding proteins specific to organelles. In addition, we are developing the technique of mitochondrial transformation of S. pombe, so that we can manipulate the mtDNA enabling us to construct a mitochondrial reporter system and put in place new genetic screens.
Collaborations
P. Belenguer (Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France) : web site
Z. Chrzanowska-Lightowlers and R.N. Lightowlers (University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK) : web site 1 - web site 2
G.D. Clark-Walker (Research School for Biological Sciences, Canberra, Australia : web site
J.-P. di Rago (IBGC, Bordeaux, France) : web site
T.D. Fox (Cornell University, Ithaca, USA) : web site
J.M. Herrmann (Kaiserslautern Universität, Deutschland) : web site
Selection of recent publications
- Larosa, V., Coosemans, N., Motte, P., Bonnefoy, N., Remacle, C. (2012) Reconstruction of a human mitochondrial complex I mutation in the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas. Plant J, Epub ahead of print.
- Glatigny, A., Mathieu, L., Herbert, CJ., Dujardin, G., Meunier, B., Mucchielli-Giorgi, MH. (2011) An in silico approach combined with in vivo experiments enables the identification of a new protein whose overexpression can compensate for specific respiratory defects in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. BMC Syst Biol, 5 (1) 173.
- Kurischko, C., Kuravi, VK., Herbert, CJ., Luca, FC.(2011)Nucleocytoplasmic shuttling of Ssd1 defines the destiny of its bound mRNAs. Mol Microbiol, 81 (3) 831-49.
- Kühl, I., Dujeancourt, L., Gaisne, M., Herbert, C.J., Bonnefoy, N. (2011) A genome wide study in fission yeast reveals nine PPR proteins that regulate mitochondrial gene expression. Nucleic Acids Res, 39 (18) 8029-41.
- Panozzo, C., Bourens, M., Nowacka, A. and Herbert, C.-J. (2010) Mutations in the C-terminus of the conserved NDR kinase, Cbk1p of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, make the protein independent of upstream activators. Mol Genet Genomics, 283 (2) 111-22.
- Bonnefoy, N., Fiumera, H.-L., Dujardin, G. and Fox, T.-D. (2009) Roles of Oxa1-related inner-membrane translocases in assembly of respiratory chain complexes. Review. Biochim Biophys Acta, 1793 (1) 60-70.
- Dukanovic, J., Dimmer, K. S., Bonnefoy, N., Krumpe, K. and Rapaport, D. (2009) Genetic and functional interactions between Tom6 and Sam37 of the mitochondrial outer membrane. Mol Cell Biol, 29 (22) 5975-88.
- Rorbach, J., Richter, R., Wessels, H.-J., Wydro, M., Pekalski, M., Farhoud, M., Kühl, I., Gaisne, M., Bonnefoy, N., Smeitink, J.-A., Lightowlers, R.-N. and Chrzanowska-Lightowlers, Z.-M. (2008) The human mitochondrial ribosome recycling factor is essential for cell viability. Nucleic Acids Res, 36 (18) 5787-99.
- Soleimanpour-Lichaei, H.-R., Kühl, I., Gaisne, M., Passos, J.-F., Wydro, M., Rorbach, J., Temperley, R., Bonnefoy, N., Tate, W., Lightowlers, R. and Chrzanowska-Lightowlers, Z. (2007) mtRF1a Is a Human Mitochondrial Translation Release Factor Decoding the Major Termination Codons UAA and UAG. Mol Cell, 27 (5) 745-57.
- Bonnefoy, N., Remacle, C. and Fox, T. D. (2007) Genetic transformation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Chlamydomonas reinhardtii mitochondria. in Methods in Cell Biology: Mitochondria 80, 525-547, L. A. Pon and E. E. Schon (Ed.), Academic Press.
- Chiron, S., Gaisne, M., Guillou, E., Belenguer, P., Clark-Walker, G. D. and Bonnefoy, N. (2007) Studying mitochondria in an attractive model: Schizosaccharomyces pombe. in Methods in Mol Biol: Mitochondria 372, 91-106, D. Leister and J. Herrmann (Ed.), Humana Press Inc, Totowa, NJ.
- Williams, E. H., Butler, C. A., Bonnefoy, N. and Fox, T. D. (2007) Translation initiation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae mitochondria: Functional interactions among mitochondrial ribosomal protein Rsm28p, initiation factor 2, methionyl-tRNA-formyltransferase, and novel protein Rmd9p Genetics 175 (3) 1117-26.
- Remacle, C., Cardol, P., Coosemans, N., Gaisne, M. and Bonnefoy, N. (2006) High-efficiency biolistic transformation of Chlamydomonas mitochondria can be used to insert mutations in complex I genes. Proc Natl Acad Sci, 103 (12) 4771-6.
- Chiron, S., Suleau, A. and Bonnefoy, N. (2005) Mitochondrial translation: elongation factor tu is essential in fission yeast and depends on an exchange factor conserved in humans but not in budding yeast. Genetics, 169 (4) 1891-901.
All publications since 2000
