The emerging role of RNA-binding proteins in the life cycle of Trypanosoma brucei

Abstract

One of the key questions in understanding the biology of an organism is how to correlate cellular fate and function with gene expression patterns. This is particularly relevant for pathogenic organisms, like the parasitic protozoa Trypanosoma brucei, who often cycle between different hosts, thereby encountering vastly different environments. Survival in and adaptation to new surroundings requires activation of specific gene networks, which is most often achieved by regulatory mechanisms embedded in the transcriptional machinery. However, in T. brucei and related trypanosomatids these responses appear to be accomplished mainly by post-transcriptional mechanisms. Although an understanding of how this parasite modulates gene regulatory networks is in the early stages, RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) are beginning to take centre stage. Here, we discuss recent progress in the identification of RBPs with crucial roles in different stages of the T. brucei life cycle, and in elucidating targets of RBPs.

Fig. 1

Tertiary structure models using the alignment interface of SWISS-MODEL (Bordoli et al., 2009) for the RRM domain of RBP10 (A), the Cys3His zinc finger of ZFP1 (B), the nucleic acid binding domain of ALBA3 (C), and the Pumilio domain of PUF9 (D).

Fig. 2

Schematic representation of the mRNAs coding for RNA-binding proteins discussed in this review. The drawings are according to the predicted sizes of the 3′UTRs based on high throughput sequencing data (Kolev et al., 2010, Siegel et al., 2010).The numbers listed are rounded to the closest 0.5 kb.