Poster abstracts
Poster number 150 submitted by Kaushani Misra
Studying modifications in a brain-enriched tRNA isodecoder
Kaushani Misra (Department of Biology, University of Rochester), Kejia Zhang (Department of Biology, University of Rochester), Dragony Fu (Department of Biology, University of Rochester)
Abstract:
Transfer RNAs (tRNAs) are post-transcriptionally modified at their nucleobases which contributes to their structure and function. Adding to this complexity, there exists multiple tRNAs isodecoders, which possess the same anticodon sequence, but can have diversity in the rest of their nucleotide sequence and modifications. One such isodecoder of the tRNA-Arginine-UCU family exhibits enriched expression in mouse and human brains. A single point mutation in the brain-enriched tRNA-Arginine-UCU isodecoder causes neurodegeneration, locomotor deficits and reduced survival in mice. We aim to decipher the modification patterns in the brain-enriched tRNA-Arginine-UCU isodecoder and how these modifications contribute to tRNA function. To achieve this goal, we have purified the brain-enriched tRNA-Arginine-UCU isodecoder and analyzed its modification state using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Interestingly, we find that the absence of a specific modification can affect the levels of other modifications in the brain-enriched tRNA-Arginine-UCU isodecoder. Our findings suggest a network of modifications in a tRNA isodecoder that contributes to proper neurodevelopment.
Keywords: tRNA modifications, Isodecoder