Molecular Functions of Conserved Developmentally-Regulated GTP-Binding Protein Drg1 in Translation

Developmentally-regulated GTP-binding (Drg) proteins are important for embryonic development, cell growth, proliferation, and differentiation. Despite their highly conserved nature, the functions of Drg proteins in translation are unknown. Here, we performed a wide analysis of ribosome dynamic in S.cerevisiae Rbg1, Rbg2 and Slh1 depleted cells using 5Pseq (Pelechano et al. 2015 PMID 26046441), which allows the study of ribosome dynamics by sequencing the 5' phoshporylated mRNA co-translational degradation itermediates. We demonstrate the yeast Drg ortholog, Rbg1, alleviates ribosome pausing at Arginine/Lysine-rich regions in mRNAs, and mainly targets genes related to ribonucleoprotein complex biogenesis and non-coding RNA processing pathways.