Identification of Clustered Organellar Short (COS) RNAs and of a Conserved Family of Organellar RNA-Binding Proteins, the Heptatricopeptide Repeat Proteins, in the Malaria Parasite

Arne Hillebrand, Joachim Michael Matz, Martin Almendinger, Katja Müller, Kai Matuschewski, Christian Schmitz-Linneweber. 2018. Nucleic Acids Research, Volume 46, Issue 19, Pages 10417-10431

In Brief   

Hillebrand et al. found a novel family of RNA binding proteins that are targeted to Apicomplexan mitochondria. The proteins were named heptatricopeptide repeat (HPR) proteins, since they bear resemblance to plant organellar PPR and OPR proteins. These proteins are essential for parasite survival and are hypothesized to cause the accumulation of short mitochondrial RNA footprints, which were also discovered in the course of this work. (Images from Hillebrand et al. 2018. Nucleic Acids Research , in press.)