Mammalian gene expression displays widespread circadian oscillations. Rhythmic transcription underlies the core clock mechanism, but it cannot explain numerous observations made at the level of protein rhythmicity. We have used ribosome profiling in mouse liver to measure the translation of mRNAs into protein around the clock and at high temporal and nucleotide resolution. We discovered, transcriptome-wide, extensive rhythms in ribosome occupancy and identified a core set of approximately 150 mRNAs subject to particularly robust daily changes in translation efficiency. Cycling proteins produced from nonoscillating transcripts revealed thus-far-unknown rhythmic regulation associated with specific pathways (notably in iron metabolism, through the rhythmic translation of transcripts containing iron responsive elements), and indicated feedback to the rhythmic transcriptome through novel rhythmic transcription factors. Moreover, estimates of relative levels of core clock protein biosynthesis that we deduced from the data explained known features of the circadian clock better than did mRNA expression alone. Finally, we identified uORF translation as a novel regulatory mechanism within the clock circuitry. Consistent with the occurrence of translated uORFs in several core clock transcripts, loss-of-function of Denr, a known regulator of reinitiation after uORF usage and of ribosome recycling, led to circadian period shortening in cells. In summary, our data offer a framework for understanding the dynamics of translational regulation, circadian gene expression, and metabolic control in a solid mammalian organ.

Phosphate (Pi) availability is a major factor limiting growth, development, and productivity of plants. In both ecological and agricultural contexts, plants often grow in soils with low soluble phosphate content. Plants respond to this situation by a series of developmental and metabolic adaptations that are aimed at increasing the acquisition of this vital nutrient from the soil, as well as to sustain plant growth and survival. The development of a comprehensive understanding of how plants sense phosphate deficiency and coordinate the responses via signaling pathways has become of major interest, and a number of signaling players and networks have begun to surface for the regulation of the phosphate-deficiency response. In practice, application of such knowledge to improve plant Pi nutrition is hindered by complex cross-talks, which are emerging in the face of new data, such as the coordination of the phosphate-deficiency signaling networks with those involved with hormones, photo-assimilates (sugar), as well as with the homeostasis of other ions, such as iron. In this review, we focus on these cross-talks and on recent progress in discovering new signaling players involved in the Pi-starvation responses, such as proteins having SPX domains.

SummaryPlant growth and development are strongly influenced by the availability of nutrients in the soil solution. Among them, phosphorus (P) is one of the most essential and most limiting macro-elements for plants. In the environment, plants are often confronted with P starvation as a result of extremely low concentrations of soluble inorganic phosphate (Pi) in the soil. To cope with these conditions, plants have developed a wide spectrum of mechanisms aimed at increasing P use efficiency. At the molecular level, recent studies have shown that several proteins carrying the SPX domain are essential for maintaining Pi homeostasis in plants. The SPX domain is found in numerous eukaryotic proteins, including several proteins from the yeast PHO regulon, involved in maintaining Pi homeostasis. In plants, proteins harboring the SPX domain are classified into four families based on the presence of additional domains in their structure, namely the SPX, SPX-EXS, SPX-MFS and SPX-RING families. In this review, we highlight the recent findings regarding the key roles of the proteins containing the SPX domain in phosphate signaling, as well as providing further research directions in order to improve our knowledge on P nutrition in plants, thus enabling the generation of plants with better P use efficiency.

Cotton fibers are single-celled seed trichomes of major economic importance. Factors that regulate the rate and duration of cell expansion control fiber morphology and important agronomic traits. For genetic characterization of rapid cell elongation in cotton fibers, approximately 14,000 unique genes were assembled from 46,603 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from developmentally staged fiber cDNAs of a cultivated diploid species ( Gossypium arboreum L.). Conservatively, the fiber transcriptome represents 35-40% of the genes in the cotton genome. In silico expression analysis revealed that rapidly elongating fiber cells exhibit significant metabolic activity, with the bulk of gene transcripts, represented by three major functional groups - cell wall structure and biogenesis, the cytoskeleton and energy/carbohydrate metabolism. Oligonucleotide microarrays revealed dynamic changes in gene expression between primary and secondary cell wall biogenesis showing that fiber genes in the dbEST are highly stage-specific for cell expansion - a conclusion supported by the absence of known secondary cell wall-specific genes from our fiber dbEST. During the developmental switch from primary to secondary cell wall syntheses, 2553 "expansion-associated" fiber genes are significantly down regulated. Genes (81) significantly up-regulated during secondary cell wall synthesis are involved in cell wall biogenesis and energy/carbohydrate metabolism, which is consistent with the stage of cellulose synthesis during secondary cell wall modification in developing fibers. This work provides the first in-depth view of the genetic complexity of the transcriptome of an expanding cell, and lays the groundwork for studying fundamental biological processes in plant biology with applications in agricultural biotechnology.