MRNAs involved in copper homeostasis are regulated by the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay pathway depending on environmental conditions

Abstract

The nonsense-mediated mRNA decay pathway (NMD) is an mRNA degradation pathway that degrades mRNAs that prematurely terminate translation. These mRNAs include mRNAs with premature termination codons as well as many natural mRNAs. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae a number of features have been shown to target natural mRNAs to NMD. However, the extent to which natural mRNAs from the same functional group are regulated by NMD and how environmental conditions influence this regulation is not known. Here, we examined mRNAs involved in copper homeostasis and are predicted to be sensitive to NMD. We found that the majority of these mRNAs have long 3′-UTRs that could target them for degradation by NMD. Analysis of one of these mRNAs, COX19, found that the long 3′-UTR contributes to regulation of this mRNA by NMD. Furthermore, we examined an additional mRNA, MAC1 under low copper conditions. We found that low copper growth conditions affect NMD sensitivity of the MAC1 mRNA demonstrating that sensitivity to NMD can be altered by environmental conditions. MAC1 is a copper sensitive transcription factor that regulates genes involved with high affinity copper transport. Our results expand our understanding of how NMD regulates mRNAs from the same functional group and how the environment influences this regulation.