Analysis on RNA Motif-Based RNA Trafficking in Plants

Heather N Smith; Junfei Ma; Ying Wang

doi:10.1007/978-1-0716-1464-8_3

Analysis on RNA Motif-Based RNA Trafficking in Plants

Methods Mol Biol. 2022:2316:29-37. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1464-8_3.

Authors

Heather N Smith¹, Junfei Ma¹, Ying Wang²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biological Sciences, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, USA.
² Department of Biological Sciences, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, USA. wang@biology.msstate.edu.

PMID: 34845682
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1464-8_3

Abstract

Systemic RNA trafficking widely exists in plants and is critical for integrating the healthy development and responses to environmental cues. Viroids, single-stranded circular noncoding RNAs that infect plants, have been used as a model to delineate the mechanism underlying systemic RNA trafficking. Recent work on viroids has shown that structural motifs are critical to direct RNA trafficking through distinct cellular boundaries. Here, we describe the methods for generating mutational variants using site-directed mutagenesis and infection assays to unravel the function of RNA motifs. This approach can be modified to study other RNA motif-based biological processes.

Keywords: DIG Northern blot; RNA systemic trafficking; Site-directed mutagenesis; Viroid.

MeSH terms

Nucleotide Motifs
Plant Diseases
Plants / genetics
RNA, Viral*
Viroids / genetics

Substances

RNA, Viral