Widespread polycistronic gene expression in green algae
Sean D. Gallaher, Rory J. Craig, Iniyan Ganesan, Samuel Purvine, S. McCorkle, Jane Grimwood, Daniela Strenkert, Lital Davidi, Melissa Roth, Tim L. Jeffers, Mary Lipton, Krishna Niyogi, Jeremy Schmutz, Steven M. Theg, Crysten E. Blaby‐Haas, Sabeeha Merchant
Abstract
Significance Historically, it has been understood that for gene expression in eukaryotes, each messenger RNA encodes a single protein. With the recent development of technologies to sequence full-length transcripts en masse, we have discovered hundreds of examples in two species of green algae where two, three, or more proteins are translated from a single transcript. These “polycistronic” transcripts are found in diverse species throughout the green algal lineage, which highlights their biological importance. We have leveraged these findings to coexpress pairs of genes on polycistronic transcripts in vitro, which should facilitate efforts to engineer algae for research and industrial applications.