Ricerca: Transcriptomic analysis of Stress Granules in Arabidopsis thaliana and Caenorhabditis elegans: identification of conserved and stress-specific components
Environmental stressors, such as high temperature and anthropogenic pollutants, affect the physiological equilibrium of cells. To cope with stress, cells employ several pathways, including the formation of cytoplasmic condensates known as Stress Granules (SGs). SGs are composed of translationally stalled mRNAs and proteins, mainly RNA-binding proteins (RBPs), which assemble transiently in response to stress, while disassembling once physiological conditions are restored. While in Homo sapiens and other model organisms, the role of both RBPs and RNAs in SGs nucleation and maintenance is well established, and their proteic composition has been extensively studied, much less is known about their transcriptomic content. Indeed, no such data are available for Arabidopsis thaliana or Caenorhabditis elegans. Since both these model organisms are widely used for environmental toxicity studies, characterizing the SGs transcriptome in these species would allow to gain insights in how these organisms use SGs to cope with stresses such as heavy metals in soil. In addition, this analysis will shed light on how RNAs are relocalized during stress and allow for cross-species comparisons to identify conserved RNA features involved in SGs recruitment