Reduction of RNA A-to-I editing in Drosophila acclimated to heat shock

• Main Authors: Joel Stocker, Hurng-Wern Huang, Hong-Ming Wang, Hsueh-Wei Chang, Chien-Chih Chiu, Chung-Lung Cho, Chao-Neng Tseng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2013-09-01
• Series: Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences
• Subjects: Adenosine deamination; dADAR (ADAR); Heat shock; I-specific cleavage; RNA editing
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1607551X13000223

Although an increasing number of RNA adenosine-to-inosine (A-to-I) editing sites are being discovered, how the editing frequencies of these sites are modulated to fine-tune protein function in adaptive responses is not well understood. A previous study screening for heat tolerance in Drosophila mutants discovered a hypnos-2 mutant strain that was later found to be defective in dADAR, the Drosophila gene encoding the A-to-I editing enzyme. This supports the hypothesis that cells and organisms respond to stressful environments by ADAR (adenosine deaminase acting on RNA)-mediated RNA editing. Here, we investigated changes in the RNA A-to-I editing frequencies of 30 Drosophila nervous system targets in response to heat shock, a stress acclimatization that requires the dADAR function. To our surprise, most of these nervous system editing targets showed reduced editing. Our results suggest that a change in RNA editing pattern is a mechanism by which organisms acclimate to drastic environmental change. However, how RNA editing confers heat resistance is more complicated and requires further investigation.