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Vol. 18, Issue 4, 1293-1301, April 2007

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Diversification of Function by Different Isoforms of Conventionally Shared RNA Polymerase Subunits

Sara Devaux^*,, Steven Kelly^,, Laurence Lecordier^*, Bill Wickstead, David Perez-Morga^*, Etienne Pays^*, Luc Vanhamme^*,, and Keith Gull^,

*Institute for Molecular Biology and Medicine, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 6041 Gosselies, Belgium; and Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RE, United Kingdom

Submitted September 19, 2006; Revised January 17, 2007; Accepted January 22, 2007
Monitoring Editor: Wendy Bickmore

Eukaryotic nuclei contain three classes of multisubunit DNA-directed RNA polymerase. At the core of each complex is a set of 12 highly conserved subunits of which five—RPB5, RPB6, RPB8, RPB10, and RPB12—are thought to be common to all three polymerase classes. Here, we show that four distantly related eukaryotic lineages (the higher plant and three protistan) have independently expanded their repertoire of RPB5 and RPB6 subunits. Using the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei as a model organism, we demonstrate that these distinct RPB5 and RPB6 subunits localize to discrete subnuclear compartments and form part of different polymerase complexes. We further show that RNA interference-mediated depletion of these discrete subunits abolishes class-specific transcription and hence demonstrates complex specialization and diversification of function by conventionally shared subunit groups.

The online version of this article contains supplemental material at MBC Online (http://www.molbiolcell.org).

These authors contributed equally to this work.

These authors contributed equally to this work.

Address correspondence to: Keith Gull (keith.gull{at}path.ox.ac.uk) or Luc Vanhamme (luc.vanhamme{at}ulb.ac.be)

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