Poster abstracts

Poster number 81 submitted by Patrick Thomas

Evaluation and analysis of polyadenylation signals in the pollen transcriptome and seed storage protein genes

Patrick E. Thomas (University of Kentucky, Plant and Soil Science), Arthur G. Hunt (University of Kentucky, Plant and Soil Science)

Abstract:
Polyadenylation, a step in posttranscriptional processing, is a key part of the formation of most eukaryotic mRNAs. Poly(A) signals in mammals and yeast are fairly well understood, but much about the signals and the proteins that interact with them is not known in plants. In an attempt to better understand poly(A) signaling in plants, we used a novel program, Signal Sleuth, to analyze the poly(A) signals in genes isolated from a previously characterized, poly(A) site aligned data set (8K dataset). The genes isolated from the 8k represented either the pollen transcriptome or seed storage protein genes. The objectives of examining these two gene sets were to find unique signals, a pronounced signaling preference, or new signaling elements. Our analysis gives us new insights into the signal specificity of the plant poly(A) apparatus, and suggests the methods we should use to further our knowledge of the proteins in the poly(A) complex.

Keywords: polyadenylation, signaling, processing