Secondary Structure of Chloroplast mRNAs In Vivo and In Vitro

mRNA secondary structure can influence gene expression, e.g., by influencing translation initiation. The probing of in vivo mRNA secondary structures is therefore necessary to understand what determines the efficiency and regulation of gene expression. Here, in vivo mRNA secondary structure was analyzed using dimethyl sulfate (DMS)-MaPseq and compared to in vitro-folded RNA. We used an approach to analyze specific, full-length transcripts. To test this approach, we chose low, medium, and high abundant mRNAs. We included both monocistronic and multicistronic transcripts. Because of the slightly alkaline pH of the chloroplast stroma, we could probe all four nucleotides with DMS. The structural information gained was evaluated using the known structure of the plastid 16S rRNA. This demonstrated that the results obtained for adenosines and cytidines were more reliable than for guanosines and uridines. The majority of mRNAs analyzed were less structured in vivo than in vitro. The in vivo secondary structure of the translation initiation region of most tested genes appears to be optimized for high translation efficiency.