SERRATE is a conserved RNA effector protein involved in transcription, processing and export of different types of RNAs. In Arabidopsis, loss of SERRATE (SE) results in decreased miRNA production. The teams of Dominique Gagliardi and Artur Jarmolowski (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań) identified new partner proteins of SE in Arabidopsis. SE interacts with NEXT, a protein complex that targets nuclear transcripts for 3’-5’ degradation by the RNA exosome. Abrogating NEXT function in se mutants leads to increased miRNA precursor accumulation, rescues levels of mature miRNA and restores the phenotype of se mutant plants, indicating a dynamic equilibrium between degradation and processing. The study has been published on May 25, 2020 in Nucleic Acids Research.
Impairing degradation can rescue miRNA production
