Red blood cell is a kind of nucleus free cell, theoretically there should not be mRNA transcription happened in the cytoplasma. But given that the red blood cells can survive in circulation for a long time, proteins should be involved in many biological processes, and also in literature, many microRNA oligos were found in red blood cells, one of the major functions of microRNA is to regulate mRNA transcription. So my question is does mRNA translation occur in red blood cell? Thanks.
There was a German group that published on this topic some time ago (Kabanova,S., et al. Gene expression analysis of human red blood cells Int. J. Med. Sci. 6(4): 156–159 (2009).) but I do not remember seeing any follow up by anyone else.
Hi Steve and Noor, thank you so much for your advice. When this question came to my mind, I also found this paper. But I had a problem on this paper, did they fully eliminate reticulocytes from the samples? According to the paper, they used a very simple method to isolate RBCs, and only analyzed CD45 and CD42 percentage to confirm there were no leukocytes and platelets contamination. But reticulocytes are also CD45-/CD42-, and they have nuclei and be able to produce mRNA.
The other thing is, if mRNA does exist in the RBC, where do they come from? Do they be produced at reticulocyte stage, and be able to survival for several months?
Thanks.
I think it’s possible.
Petra Kleinbongard in 2009 reported “about the presence of genes in human RBCs encoding initiation, activation and regulation of transcription and translation (for instance RNA polymerises I,II,III, zinc/PHD finger-DNA-binding proteins, cysteinyl, lysyl-tRNA synthetase), important RNA-stabilising factor - poly(A) binding protein, anti-apoptotic proteins (for instance beclin 1, reticulon 4, BCL2, IAP) together with genes for RNA degradation (for example ribonuclease T2) as well as genes encoding typical apoptotic proteins such as cyclooxygenase, apoptotic protease activating factor, caspase 8” .
And Imane Azzouzi in 2015 reported that red blood cells contain complex microRNA
machinery, which might enable immature red blood cells to control protein translation independent of de novo nuclei information.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301472X15000363
Basically red blood cells lack an nucleus and most organelles to have more space for hemoglobine to increase oxygen transportation capacity. Essential mRNAs will be still present in the cytoplasma where it is translated but they will be exhausted over time. This is also the reason for the 100 days lifespan of red blood cells.
Cytoplasmic extracts prepared from erythrocytes lack mRNA translation activity in vitro, in contrast to reticulocyte lysate. Both, erythrocytes as well as enucleated reticulocytes of different stages circulate in the blood stream and protein synthesis activity takes place in the latter fraction. Enucleated reticulocytes translate mRNAs that are stabilzed by specific RBPs, like alpha globin encoding mRNA or those, which were previousely silenced by RBPs, like r15-LOX mRNA. R15-LOX is required to initiate mitochondria degardation in the already enucleated cells, which switch from oxidative phosphorylation to glycolysis. The miRNA study mentioned aboth made use of a mixed population of reticulocytes and erythrocytes.
Hay
of course mRNA translation occur in red blood cell because there are not just mature RBC in blood circulation
Dr Junhua Mai : i think they could maintain their mRNA stability more than normal like ovum after fertilization (zygote cell) .the point is their mRNA is stable on cytoplasm in both sort of cells
i feel the point is how they could maintain mRNA not where they come from
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