RNA editing machinery in plant organelles

Abstract

RNA editing is a type of post-transcriptional modification that includes nucleotide insertion/deletion or conversion. Different categories of RNA editing have been widely observed in distinct RNAs from divergent organisms. In flowering plants, RNA editing usually alters cytidine to uridine in plastids and mitochondria, playing important roles in various plant developmental processes, including organelle biogenesis, adaptation to environmental changes, and signal transduction. Numerous studies have demonstrated that a number of factors are involved in plant RNA editing, such as pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) proteins, multiple organelle RNA editing factors (MORF, also known as RIP), organelle RNA recognition motif (ORRM) containing proteins, protoporphyrinogen IX oxidase 1 (PPO1) and organelle zinc finger 1 (OZ1). These factors play diverse roles in plant RNA editing due to their distinct characteristics. In this review, we discuss the functional roles of the individual editing factors and their associations in plant RNA editing.