Distinct roles for the 5' and 3' untranslated regions in the degradation and accumulation of chloroplast tufA mRNA: identification of an early intermediate in the in vivo degradation pathway.

Elongation factor Tu in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a chloroplast-encoded gene (tufA) whose 1.7-kb mRNA has a relatively short half-life. In the presence of chloramphenicol (CAP), which freezes translating chloroplast ribosomes, a 1.