Peculiarities of the regulation of translation initiation in plants

Abstract

Protein synthesis is a fundamental process for life and, as such, plays a crucial role in the adaptation to energy, developmentaland environmental conditions. For these reasons, and despite the general conservation of the eukaryotic translational machinery, it is not surprising that organisms with different lifestyles have evolved distinct mechanisms of regulation to adapt translation initiation to their intrinsic growth and development. Plants have clear peculiarities compared with other eukaryotes that have also extended to translation control. This review describes the plant-specific mechanisms for regulation of translation initiation, with a focus on those that modulate the eIF4F complexes, central translational regulatory hubs in all eukaryotes, and highlights the latest discoveries on the signaling pathways that regulate their constituents and activity.

Keywords: Arabidopsis; FERONIA; Initiation factors; Plant translation regulation; Plant-specific initiation complexes; Regulation of translation; Ribosomal proteins; SOAR1; SnRK1; Translation initiation; eIF2B; eIF2alpha; eIF4E and eIF4G mutants; eIFiso4E and eIFiso4G mutants; uORFs.