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The Evolution And Mechanics Of Translational Control In Plants, Justin N. Vaughn

Doctoral Dissertations

The expression of numerous plant mRNAs is attenuated by RNA sequence elements located in the 5' and 3' untranslated regions (UTRs). For example, in plants and many higher eukaryotes, roughly 35% of genes encode mRNAs that contain one or more upstream open reading frames (uORFs) in the 5' UTR. For this dissertation I have analyzed the pattern of conservation of such mRNA sequence elements. In the first set of studies, I have taken a comparative transcriptomics approach to address which RNA sequence elements are conserved between various families of angiosperm plants. Such conservation indicates an element's fundamental importance to plant …