Transcriptome and translatome profiling of Arabidopsis Tandem Zinc Finger 9 (TZF9) mutant in response to flagellin (flg22)

The Arabidopsis Tandem Zinc Finger 9 (TZF9) is a putative RNA-binding protein that is localized to Processing Body-like structures. A tzf9 knock out line showed attenuated response to the Pattern-Associated Molecular Pattern (PAMP), flg22 (doi: 10.1093/pcp/pct175). To uncover the molecular mechanism for this phenotype, global gene expression analysis covering total RNA (transcriptome) and polysome-associated mRNAs (translatome) was performed. For the latter, a transgenic line expressing a FLAG-tagged ribosomal protein RPL18 was crossed to the tzf9 mutant. The results show a strong 'uncoupling' between transcriptome and translatome in the mutant, indicating that TZF9 could be involved in global post-transcriptional regulation process.