Background: Pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) proteins that are required for RNA editing frequently include a C-terminal DYW deaminase domain. Results: Mutagenesis of a glutamate residue in the conserved deaminase HXE motif results in loss of editing activity. Conclusion:The glutamate residue is required for editing. Significance: The DYW deaminase domain of PPR proteins has the molecular characteristics of a deaminase.Many transcripts expressed from plant organelle genomes are modified by C-to-U RNA editing. Nuclear encoded pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) proteins include an RNA binding domain that provides site specificity. In addition, many PPR proteins include a C-terminal DYW deaminase domain with characteristic zinc binding motifs (CXXC, HXE) and has recently been shown to bind zinc ions. The glutamate residue of the HXE motif is catalytically required in the reaction catalyzed by cytidine deaminase. In this work, we examine the activity of the DYW deaminase domain through truncation or mutagenesis of the HXE motif. OTP84 is required for editing three chloroplast sites, and transgenes expressing OTP84 with C-terminal truncations were capable of editing only one of the three cognate sites at high efficiency. These results suggest that the deaminase domain of OTP84 is required for editing two of the sites, but another deaminase is able to supply the deamination activity for the third site. OTP84 and CREF7 transgenes were mutagenized to replace the glutamate residue of the HXE motif, and transgenic plants expressing OTP84-E824A and CREF7-E554A were unable to efficiently edit the cognate editing sites for these genes. In addition, plants expressing CREF7-E554A exhibited substantially reduced capacity to edit a non-cognate site, rpoA C200. These results indicate that the DYW deaminase domains of PPR proteins are involved in editing their cognate editing sites, and in some cases may participate in editing additional sites in the chloroplast.RNA editing takes place in most land plant chloroplasts and mitochondria (1, 2). In flowering plants, the transcripts of chloroplasts and mitochondria are modified post-transcriptionally by C-to-U editing with about 35 C-to-U editing events in chloroplasts and hundreds of editing sites in the mitochondria (3).Editing in higher plants and in Physcomitrella patens is known to require nuclear proteins (4 -8).Pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) 2 genes have been shown to be required for RNA editing (9), and form a large family of protein-coding genes in higher plants with over 400 members in Arabidopsis (10). The known editing factors are members of the PLS subfamily of PPR proteins, which are composed of characteristic P, L (long), and S (short) repeats (11). Amino acid residues located in specific locations within the repeats have been shown to specify the base recognized in the cis-element (12)(13)(14), and the PLS repeat domain interacts with specific nucleotides within the cis-element to provide site specificity for RNA editing (12,15).The PLS subfamily of PPR proteins also includes ...

Suppressor mutations provide potentially powerful tools for examining mechanisms underlying neurological disorders and identifying novel targets for pharmacological intervention. Here we describe mutations that suppress seizures in a Drosophila model of human epilepsy. A screen utilizing the Drosophila easily shocked (eas) "epilepsy" mutant identified dominant suppressors of seizure sensitivity. Among several mutations identified, neuronal escargot (esg) reduced eas seizures almost 90%. The esg gene encodes a member of the snail family of transcription factors. Whereas esg is normally expressed in a limited number of neurons during a defined period of nervous system development, here normal esg was expressed in all neurons and throughout development. This greatly ameliorated both the electrophysiological and the behavioral epilepsy phenotypes of eas. Neuronal esg appears to act as a general seizure suppressor in the Drosophila epilepsy model as it reduces the susceptibility of several seizure-prone mutants. We observed that esg must be ectopically expressed during nervous system development to reduce seizure susceptibility in adults. Furthermore, induction of esg in a small subset of neurons (interneurons) will reduce seizure susceptibility. A combination of microarray and computational analyses revealed 100 genes that represent possible targets of neuronal esg. We anticipate that some of these genes may ultimately serve as targets for novel antiepileptic drugs.