Area 1: Molecular biology of microorganisms and viruses
Detecting and characterizing specialized ribosomes translating specific classes of
mRNAs in Archaea
Paola Londei
Department of Cellular Biotechnologies and Hematology
: +39 06 4940463 - @: londei@bce.uniroma1.it
Proposal summary
It has long been known that ribosome architecture and the basic mechanism of protein
synthesis are highly conserved in evolution. For this reason, ribosomes have been
traditionally regarded as a static factory that passively carry out translation, while the
mechanisms controlling translation have been mainly searched for among the translation
initiation factors and the specific sequence motifs of mRNAs. Recently however, studies
performed in both bacteria and eukaryotes have revealed the existence of “specialized”
ribosomes which selectively translate specific classes of mRNAs. These specialized
ribosomes may be diversified from the common ribosome pool in their protein composition,
or they may contain rRNAs with sequence variants or structural alterations. The
specialized ribosomes may operate, for example, under stress conditions or in tumor cells,
subtly modifying the cellular proteome to accommodate the arising physiological needs.
The main goal of this project is to investigate whether specialized ribosomes can be found
in Archaea, the third domain of life, and, if so, to identify the mRNA classes preferentially
translated by the ribosomal variants under defined physiological conditions. Furthermore,
we mean to investigate whether IF6, a translation factor conserved in archaea and
eukarya, has a role in promoting the biosynthesis of ribosomal variants or in controlling
ribosome loading of specific mRNAs. The results will reveal whether translational
regulation by means of specialized ribosomes is ubiquitously distributed in the three
domains of life and whether eIF6 is a conserved player in this process in the
archaeal/eukaryal lineage.
Group components
Dr. Dario Benelli, research fellow (ricercatore universitario)
Dr. Antimo Naspi, post-doctoral fellow (assegnista di ricerca)
Dr. Dorina Polinari, PhD student