Genome‐wide role of P‐bodies mRNP in mRNA decay of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Translation and mRNA degradation are tightly regulated upon stress where protein synthesis and mRNA decay are modulated to optimize the stress response. However, the mechanisms that regulate mRNA decay and translation during stress are not fully understood. In this work, we show that Dcp2 phosphorylation by Ste20 kinase during stress promotes stabilization of ribosomal protein mRNAs as well as Dcp2 accumulation in P‐bodies in Saccharomyces cerevisiae . In addition, we have analyzed the role of P‐bodies during stress and mid‐log growth by examining how alterations in P‐body assembly factors affect the transcriptome. Interestingly, we observe that depending on the growth conditions, components of P‐bodies that promote their assembly can either stabilize or destabilize specific subsets of yeast mRNAs. These results argue that P‐bodies can function as sites of mRNA degradation, storage or transcription control for subset of mRNAs by localized accumulation of specific factors. Additional experiments to determine how P‐body assembly regulates mRNA function will be presented.