Deadenylation by the CCR4-NOT complex contributes to the turnover of hairy-related mRNAs in the zebrafish segmentation clock.

In the zebrafish segmentation clock, hairy/enhancer of split-related genes her1, her7, and hes6 encodes components of core oscillators. Since the expression of cyclic genes proceeds rapidly in the presomitic mesoderm (PSM), these hairy-related mRNAs are subject to strict post-transcriptional regulation. In this study, we demonstrate that inhibition of the CCR4-NOT deadenylase complex lengthens poly(A) tails of hairy-related mRNAs and increases the amount of these mRNAs, which is accompanied by defective somite segmentation. In transgenic embryos, we show that EGFP mRNAs with 3'UTRs of hairy-related genes exhibit turnover similar to endogenous mRNAs. Our results suggest that turnover rates of her1, her7, and hes6 mRNAs are differently regulated by the CCR4-NOT deadenylase complex possibly through their 3'UTRs in the zebrafish PSM.