Updated project metadata.
ZC3H28 is a zinc-finger domain protein that is essential in bloodstream forms trypanosomes. Tethering ZC3H28 to a reporter mRNA results in an increase of the reporter mRNA levels but without a corresponding increase in protein expression levels. ZC3H28 associates with long RNAs that have low complexity in their 3’-untranslated regions. RNA immunoprecipitation results also showed that there was also a clear negative correlation between ZC3H28 mRNA binding and ribosome density. DRBD18 is a double RNA-binding domain protein that is essential in bloodstream forms and in procyclic forms. RNAi-mediated depletion of DRBD18 in bloodstream forms leads to reduction in RBP10 protein expression levels and caused accumulatio of several shortened RBP10 mRNA isoforms. DRBD18 depletion had similar effects on more than other 100 mRNAs including DRBD12. Binding of DRBD18 to mRNAs did not correlate with effects on the transcriptome, presumably because binding to mRNA precursors is not detected. We speculate that DRBD18 might bind to processing signals in the 3'-UTRs of mRNAs, thus preventing their use, and that this binding also serves to recruit mRNA export factors.