Eukaryotes have evolved various quality control mechanisms to promote proteostasis in the ER. Selective removal of certain ER domains via autophagy (termed as ER-phagy) has emerged as a major quality control mechanism. However, the degree to which ER-phagy is employed by other branches of ER-quality control remains largely elusive. Here, we identify a cytosolic protein, C53, that is specifically recruited to autophagosomes during ER-stress, in both plant and mammalian cells. C53 interacts with ATG8 via a distinct binding epitope, featuring a shuffled ATG8 interacting motif (sAIM). C53 senses proteotoxic stress in the ER lumen by forming a tripartite receptor complex with the ER-associated ufmylation ligase UFL1 and its membrane adaptor DDRGK1. The C53/UFL1/DDRGK1 receptor complex is activated by stalled ribosomes and induces the degradation of internal or passenger proteins in the ER. Consistently, the C53 receptor complex and ufmylation mutants are highly susceptible to ER stress. Thus, C53 forms an ancient quality control pathway that bridges selective autophagy with ribosome-associated quality control in the ER.

RNA silencing is a major antiviral defense mechanism in plants and invertebrates. Plant ARGONAUTE1 (AGO1) is pivotal in RNA silencing, and hence is a major target for counteracting viral suppressors of RNA-silencing proteins (VSRs). P0 from Turnip yellows virus (TuYV) is a VSR that was previously shown to trigger AGO1 degradation via an autophagy-like process. However, the identity of host proteins involved and the cellular site at which AGO1 and P0 interact were unknown. Here we report that P0 and AGO1 associate on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), resulting in their loading into ER-associated vesicles that are mobilized to the vacuole in an ATG5- and ATG7-dependent manner. We further identified ATG8-Interacting proteins 1 and 2 (ATI1 and ATI2) as proteins that associate with P0 and interact with AGO1 on the ER up to the vacuole. Notably, ATI1 and ATI2 belong to an endogenous degradation pathway of ER-associated AGO1 that is significantly induced following P0 expression. Accordingly, ATI1 and ATI2 deficiency causes a significant increase in posttranscriptional gene silencing (PTGS) activity. Collectively, we identify ATI1 and ATI2 as components of an ER-associated AGO1 turnover and proper PTGS maintenance and further show how the VSR P0 manipulates this pathway.

Biogenesis of the vast majority of plant siRNAs depends on the activity of the plant-specific RNA polymerase IV (PolIV) enzyme. As part of the RNA-dependent DNA methylation (RdDM) process, PolIV-dependent siRNAs (p4-siRNAs) are loaded onto an ARGONAUTE4-containing complex and guide de novo DNA methyltransferases to target loci. Here we show that the doublestranded RNA binding proteins DRB2 and DRB4 are required for proper accumulation of p4-siRNAs. In flowers, loss of DRB2 results in increased accumulation of p4-siRNAs but not ta-siRNAs, inverted repeat (IR)-derived siRNAs, or miRNA. Loss of DRB2 does not impair uniparental expression of p4-dependent siRNAs in developing endosperm, indicating that p4-siRNA increased accumulation is not the result of the activation of the polIV pathway in the male gametophyte. In contrast to drb2, drb4 mutants exhibit reduced p4-siRNA levels, but the extent of this reduction is variable, according to the nature and size of the p4-siRNAs. Loss of DRB4 also leads to a spectacular increase of p4-independent IR-derived 24-nt siRNAs, suggesting a reallocation of factors from p4-dependent to p4-independent siRNA pathways in drb4. Opposite effects of drb2 and drb4 mutations on the accumulation of p4-siRNAs were also observed in vegetative tissues. Moreover, transgenic plants overexpressing DRB2 mimicked drb4 mutants at the morphological and molecular levels, confirming the antagonistic roles of DRB2 and DRB4.

In , ARGONAUTE1 (AGO1) plays a central role in microRNA (miRNA) and small interfering RNA (siRNA)-mediated silencing and is a key component in antiviral responses. The polerovirus F-box P0 protein triggers AGO1 degradation as a viral counterdefense. Here, we identified a motif in AGO1 that is required for its interaction with the S phase kinase-associated protein1-cullin 1-F-box protein (SCF) P0 (SCF) complex and subsequent degradation. The AGO1 P0 degron is conserved and confers P0-mediated degradation to other AGO proteins. Interestingly, the degron motif is localized in the DUF1785 domain of AGO1, in which a single point mutation (, obtained by forward genetic screening) compromises recognition by SCF Recapitulating formation of the RNA-induced silencing complex in a cell-free system revealed that this mutation impairs RNA unwinding, leading to stalled forms of AGO1 still bound to double-stranded RNAs. In vivo, the DUF1785 is required for unwinding perfectly matched siRNA duplexes, but is mostly dispensable for unwinding imperfectly matched miRNA duplexes. Consequently, its mutation nearly abolishes phased siRNA production and sense transgene posttranscriptional gene silencing. Overall, our work sheds new light on the mode of AGO1 recognition by P0 and the in vivo function of DUF1785 in RNA silencing.

In this work, we retrace the evolutionary history of plant double-stranded RNA binding proteins (DRBs), a group of non-catalytic factors containing one or more double-stranded RNA binding motif (dsRBM) that play important roles in small RNA biogenesis and functions. Using a phylogenetic approach, we show that multiple dsRBM DRBs are systematically composed of two different types of dsRBMs evolving under different constraints and likely fulfilling complementary functions. In vascular plants, four distinct clades of multiple dsRBM DRBs are always present with the exception of Brassicaceae species, that do not possess member of the newly identified clade we named DRB6. We also identified a second new and highly conserved DRB family (we named DRB7) whose members possess a single dsRBM that shows concerted evolution with the most C-terminal dsRBM domain of the Dicer-like 4 (DCL4) proteins. Using a BiFC approach, we observed that Arabidopsis thaliana DRB7.2 (AtDRB7.2) can directly interact with AtDRB4 but not with AtDCL4 and we provide evidence that both AtDRB7.2 and AtDRB4 participate in the epigenetically activated siRNAs pathway.

2Eukaryotes have evolved various quality control mechanisms to promote proteostasis in the ER.3 Selective removal of certain ER domains via autophagy (termed as ER-phagy) has emerged as a 4 major quality control mechanism. However, the degree to which ER-phagy is employed by other 5 branches of ER-quality control remains largely elusive. Here, we identify a cytosolic protein, C53, 6 that is specifically recruited to autophagosomes during ER-stress, in both plant and mammalian cells. 7C53 interacts with ATG8 via a distinct binding epitope, featuring a shuffled ATG8 interacting motif 8 (sAIM). C53 senses proteotoxic stress in the ER lumen by forming a tripartite receptor complex with 9 the ER-associated ufmylation ligase UFL1 and its membrane adaptor DDRGK1. The 10 C53/UFL1/DDRGK1 receptor complex is activated by stalled ribosomes and induces the degradation 11 of internal or passenger proteins in the ER. Consistently, the C53 receptor complex and ufmylation 12 mutants are highly susceptible to ER stress. Thus, C53 forms an ancient quality control pathway that 13 bridges selective autophagy with ribosome-associated quality control at the ER. 14 15 65 stress, we performed an immunoprecipitation coupled to mass spectrometry (IP-MS) screen to identify 66 AIM-dependent ATG8 interactions triggered by ER stress. We hypothesized that a synthetic AIM peptide 67 that has higher affinity for ATG8 can outcompete, and thus reveal, AIM-dependent ATG8 interactors. To 68 identify this synthetic peptide, we performed a peptide array analysis that revealed the AIM wt peptide 69 (Figure S1a, b; Table S1). Using isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), we showed that the AIM wt binds 70 4 ATG8 with nanomolar affinity (KD=~700 nM), in contrast to the AIM mutant peptide (AIM mut), which 71 does not show any binding ( Figure S1c-f) or the low micromolar-range affinities measured for most cargo 72 receptors (Zaffagnini and Martens, 2016). As plants have an expanded set of ATG8 proteins, we first tested 73 if any of the ATG8 isoforms specifically responded to ER stress induced by tunicamycin (Kellner et al., 74 2016). Tunicamycin inhibits glycosylation and leads to proteotoxic stress at the ER (Bernales et al., 2006). 75 Quantification of ATG8 puncta in transgenic seedlings expressing GFP-ATG8A-I revealed that 76 tunicamycin treatment significantly induced all nine ATG8 isoforms (Figure S2). Since all ATG8 isoforms 77 were induced, we chose ATG8A, and performed peptide competition coupled IP-MS analysis (See methods 78 for detailed description). In addition to well-known AIM dependent ATG8 interactors such as ATG4 79 (Autophagy related gene 4) and NBR1 (Neighbour of BRCA1) (Wild et al., 2014), our analyses revealed 80 that the highly conserved cytosolic protein C53 (aliases: CDK5RAP3, LZAP, IC53, HSF-27) is an AIM-81 dependent ATG8 interactor (Figure 1a, Table S2, Figure S3). 83To confirm our IP-MS results, we performed in vitro pull-down experiments. Arabidopsis thaliana (At) 84 C53 specifically interacted with GST-ATG8A, and this interac...

Regulated gene expression is key to the orchestrated progression of the cell cycle. Many genes are expressed at specific points in the cell cycle, including important cell cycle regulators, plus factors involved in signal transduction, hormonal regulation, and metabolic control. We demonstrate that post-embryonic depletion of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) ARGONAUTE1 (AGO1), the main effector of plant microRNAs (miRNAs), impairs cell division in the root meristem. We utilized the highly synchronizable tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) Bright yellow 2 (BY2) cell suspension to analyze mRNA, small RNAs, and mRNA cleavage products of synchronized BY2 cells at S, G2, M, and G1 phases of the cell cycle. This revealed that in plants, only a few miRNAs show differential accumulation during the cell cycle, and miRNA-target pairs were only identified for a small proportion of the more than 13,000 differentially expressed genes during the cell cycle. However, this unique set of miRNA-target pairs could be key to attenuate the expression of several transcription factors and disease resistance genes. We also demonstrate that AGO1 binds to a set of 19-nucleotide, tRNA-derived fragments during the cell cycle progression.

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