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First published online July 11, 2006

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New function for oskar mRNA

Maternal proteins help to establish body axes in many developing organisms. In Drosophila, the maternally encoded protein Oskar is responsible for the formation of the posterior pole plasm in the egg and thus the development of the adult's abdomen and germline. Jenny, Hachet and colleagues now report that oskar mRNA has an additional, translation-independent role in early Drosophila oogenesis (see p. 2827). Classical oskar mutants, which produce embryos that lack an abdomen and germ cells, make oskar mRNA but no Oskar protein. The researchers describe two new mutants in which little or no oskar mRNA is made. These mutants are sterile because of an early arrest in oogenesis, but their egg-less defect can be rescued by expression of the oskar 3' untranslated region alone, indicating that oskar mRNA mediates this early oskar function. The researchers suggest that oskar mRNA might either sequester a negative regulator of oogenesis or provide a scaffold on which the cytoplasmic complexes needed for oocyte development are assembled.

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Related articles in Development:

A translation-independent role of oskar RNA in early Drosophila oogenesis

Andreas Jenny, Olivier Hachet, Péter Závorszky, Anna Cyrklaff, Matthew D. J. Weston, Daniel St Johnston, Miklós Erdélyi, and Anne Ephrussi
Development 2006 133: 2827-2833. [Abstract] [Full Text]  

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Related articles in Development Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?