College of Food and Biological Engineering, Chengdu University, Chengdu 610106, China.
Chengdu Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, Chengdu 611130, China.
Genes (Basel). 2024 Jul 29;15(8):994. doi: 10.3390/genes15080994.
The untranslated regions (UTRs) within plant mRNAs play crucial roles in regulating gene expression and the functionality of post-translationally modified proteins by various mechanisms. These regions are vital for plants' ability to sense to multiple developmental and environmental stimuli. In this study, we conducted a genome-wide analysis of UTRs and UTR-containing genes in maize (). Using the family as a case study, we demonstrated that the length of 5' UTRs could influence gene expression levels by employing reporter gene assays. Although maize and arabidopsis (), as well as rice (), have distinct functional categories of UTR-containing genes, we observed a similar lengthwise distribution of UTRs and a recurring appearance of certain gene ontology (GO) terms between maize and rice. These suggest a potentially conserved mechanism within the Poaceae species. Furthermore, the analysis of -acting elements in these 5' UTRs of the gene family further supports the hypothesis that UTRs confer functional specificity to genes in a length-dependent manner. Our findings offer novel insights into the role of UTRs in maize, contributing to the broader understanding of gene expression regulation in plants.
植物 mRNA 中的非翻译区 (UTR) 通过多种机制在调节基因表达和翻译后修饰蛋白的功能方面发挥着关键作用。这些区域对于植物感知多种发育和环境刺激的能力至关重要。在这项研究中，我们对玉米中的 UTR 和包含 UTR 的基因进行了全基因组分析。利用 家族作为案例研究，我们通过报告基因检测证明，5'UTR 的长度可以通过影响基因表达水平。尽管玉米和拟南芥（Arabidopsis thaliana）以及水稻（Oryza sativa）具有不同的 UTR 包含基因的功能类别，但我们观察到玉米和水稻之间 UTR 的长度分布相似，并且某些基因本体 (GO) 术语经常出现。这表明在禾本科物种中存在潜在的保守机制。此外，对 基因家族这些 5'UTR 中的 - 作用元件的分析进一步支持了 UTR 以长度依赖的方式赋予基因功能特异性的假设。我们的研究结果为玉米中的 UTR 作用提供了新的见解，有助于更全面地了解植物中的基因表达调控。
