scholarly journals Post-transcriptional control of gene expression following stress: the role of RNA-binding proteins

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 1007-1014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Harvey ◽  
Veronica Dezi ◽  
Mariavittoria Pizzinga ◽  
Anne E. Willis

The ability of mammalian cells to modulate global protein synthesis in response to cellular stress is essential for cell survival. While control of protein synthesis is mediated by the regulation of eukaryotic initiation and elongation factors, RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) provide a crucial additional layer to post-transcriptional regulation. RBPs bind specific RNA through conserved RNA-binding domains and ensure that the information contained within the genome and transcribed in the form of RNA is exported to the cytoplasm, chemically modified, and translated prior to folding into a functional protein. Thus, this group of proteins, through mediating translational reprogramming, spatial reorganisation, and chemical modification of RNA molecules, have a major influence on the robust cellular response to external stress and toxic injury.

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 1191-1193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Ademokun ◽  
Martin Turner

Post-transcriptional control of gene expression is an important mechanism for maintaining cellular homoeostasis and regulating the immune response to infection. It allows control of mRNA abundance, translation and localization. Mechanisms for post-transcriptional control involve RNA-binding proteins and miRNAs (microRNAs). The TTP(tristetraprolin) family of proteins recognize and bind AU-rich elements. Deletion of TTP led to a systemic autoimmune syndrome with excess circulating TNFα (tumour necrosis factor α) and GM-CSF (granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor) due to aberrantly stabilized mRNA. The family may also have a role in control of lymphocyte development and function. miRNAs regulate gene expression by promoting decay or inhibiting translation of transcripts with base pair complementarity. The importance of miRNAs in lymphocytes is highlighted by the T-cell-specific deletion of Dicer, an enzyme required for miRNA-mediated processing and from the phenotype of bic (B-cell integration cluster)/miR-155 (miRNA 155)-deficient mice.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 930-939 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Müller-McNicoll ◽  
Oliver Rossbach ◽  
Jingyi Hui ◽  
Jan Medenbach

Abstract RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) are key regulators in post-transcriptional control of gene expression. Mutations that alter their activity or abundance have been implicated in numerous diseases such as neurodegenerative disorders and various types of cancer. This highlights the importance of RBP proteostasis and the necessity to tightly control the expression levels and activities of RBPs. In many cases, RBPs engage in an auto-regulatory feedback by directly binding to and influencing the fate of their own mRNAs, exerting control over their own expression. For this feedback control, RBPs employ a variety of mechanisms operating at all levels of post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. Here we review RBP-mediated autogenous feedback regulation that either serves to maintain protein abundance within a physiological range (by negative feedback) or generates binary, genetic on/off switches important for e.g. cell fate decisions (by positive feedback).


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Montavon ◽  
Morgane Baldaccini ◽  
Mathieu Lefèvre ◽  
Erika Girardi ◽  
Béatrice Chane-Woon-Ming ◽  
...  

AbstractThe antiviral innate immune response mainly involves type I interferon (IFN) in mammalian cells. The contribution of the RNA silencing machinery remains to be established, but several recent studies indicate that the ribonuclease DICER can generate viral siRNAs in specific conditions. It has also been proposed that type I IFN and RNA silencing could be mutually exclusive antiviral responses. In order to decipher the implication of DICER during infection of human cells with the Sindbis virus, we determined its interactome by proteomics analysis. We show that DICER specifically interacts with several double-stranded RNA binding proteins and RNA helicases during viral infection. In particular, proteins such as DHX9, ADAR-1 and the protein kinase RNA-activated (PKR) are enriched with DICER in virus-infected cells. We demonstrate the importance of DICER helicase domain in its interaction with PKR and showed that it has functional consequences for the cellular response to viral infection.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathrin Bajak ◽  
Kevin Leiss ◽  
Christine Clayton ◽  
Esteban Erben

AbstractKinetoplastids rely heavily on post-transcriptional mechanisms for control of gene expression, and on RNA-binding proteins that regulate mRNA splicing, translation and decay. Trypanosoma brucei ERBP1 (Tb927.10.14150) and ERBP2 (Tb927.9.9550) were previously identified as mRNA binding proteins that lack canonical RNA-binding domains. We here show that ERBP1 is associated with the endoplasmic reticulum, like ERBP2, and that the two proteins interact in vivo. Loss of ERBP1 from bloodstream-form T. brucei initially resulted in a growth defect but proliferation was restored after more prolonged cultivation. Results from a pull-down of tagged ERBP1 suggest that it preferentially binds to ribosomal protein mRNAs. The ERBP1 sequence resembles that of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Bfr1, which also localises to the endoplasmic reticulum and binds to ribosomal protein mRNAs. However, unlike Bfr1, ERBP1 does not bind to mRNAs encoding secreted proteins, and it is also not recruited to stress granules after starvation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 293 (43) ◽  
pp. 16596-16607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jackson B. Trotman ◽  
Bernice A. Agana ◽  
Andrew J. Giltmier ◽  
Vicki H. Wysocki ◽  
Daniel R. Schoenberg

The N7-methylguanosine cap is added in the nucleus early in gene transcription and is a defining feature of eukaryotic mRNAs. Mammalian cells also possess cytoplasmic machinery for restoring the cap at uncapped or partially degraded RNA 5′ ends. Central to both pathways is capping enzyme (CE) (RNA guanylyltransferase and 5′-phosphatase (RNGTT)), a bifunctional, nuclear and cytoplasmic enzyme. CE is recruited to the cytoplasmic capping complex by binding of a C-terminal proline-rich sequence to the third Src homology 3 (SH3) domain of NCK adapter protein 1 (NCK1). To gain broader insight into the cellular context of cytoplasmic recapping, here we identified the protein interactome of cytoplasmic CE in human U2OS cells through two complementary approaches: chemical cross-linking and recovery with cytoplasmic CE and protein screening with proximity-dependent biotin identification (BioID). This strategy unexpectedly identified 66 proteins, 52 of which are RNA-binding proteins. We found that CE interacts with several of these proteins independently of RNA, mediated by sequences within its N-terminal triphosphatase domain, and we present a model describing how CE-binding proteins may function in defining recapping targets. This analysis also revealed that CE is a client protein of heat shock protein 90 (HSP90). Nuclear and cytoplasmic CEs were exquisitely sensitive to inhibition of HSP90, with both forms declining significantly following treatment with each of several HSP90 inhibitors. Importantly, steady-state levels of capped mRNAs decreased in cells treated with the HSP90 inhibitor geldanamycin, raising the possibility that the cytotoxic effect of these drugs may partially be due to a general reduction in translatable mRNAs.


2019 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura P.M.H. de Rooij ◽  
Derek C.H. Chan ◽  
Ava Keyvani Chahi ◽  
Kristin J. Hope

Normal hematopoiesis is sustained through a carefully orchestrated balance between hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) self-renewal and differentiation. The functional importance of this axis is underscored by the severity of disease phenotypes initiated by abnormal HSC function, including myelodysplastic syndromes and hematopoietic malignancies. Major advances in the understanding of transcriptional regulation of primitive hematopoietic cells have been achieved; however, the post-transcriptional regulatory layer that may impinge on their behavior remains underexplored by comparison. Key players at this level include RNA-binding proteins (RBPs), which execute precise and highly coordinated control of gene expression through modulation of RNA properties that include its splicing, polyadenylation, localization, degradation, or translation. With the recent identification of RBPs having essential roles in regulating proliferation and cell fate decisions in other systems, there has been an increasing appreciation of the importance of post-transcriptional control at the stem cell level. Here we discuss our current understanding of RBP-driven post-transcriptional regulation in HSCs, its implications for normal, perturbed, and malignant hematopoiesis, and the most recent technological innovations aimed at RBP–RNA network characterization at the systems level. Emerging evidence highlights RBP-driven control as an underappreciated feature of primitive hematopoiesis, the greater understanding of which has important clinical implications.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 1965 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cosmin Cătălin Mustăciosu ◽  
Adela Banciu ◽  
Călin Mircea Rusu ◽  
Daniel Dumitru Banciu ◽  
Diana Savu ◽  
...  

The neuron-specific Elav-like Hu RNA-binding proteins were described to play an important role in neuronal differentiation and plasticity by ensuring the post-transcriptional control of RNAs encoding for various proteins. Although Elav-like Hu proteins alterations were reported in diabetes or neuropathy, little is known about the regulation of neuron-specific Elav-like Hu RNA-binding proteins in sensory neurons of dorsal root ganglia (DRG) due to the diabetic condition. The goal of our study was to analyze the gene and protein expression of HuB, HuC, and HuD in DRG sensory neurons in diabetes. The diabetic condition was induced in CD-1 adult male mice with single-intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (STZ, 150 mg/kg), and 8-weeks (advanced diabetes) after induction was quantified the Elav-like proteins expression. Based on the glycemia values, we identified two types of responses to STZ, and mice were classified in STZ-resistant (diabetic resistant, glycemia < 260 mg/dL) and STZ-sensitive (diabetic, glycemia > 260 mg/dL). Body weight measurements indicated that 8-weeks after STZ-induction of diabetes, control mice have a higher increase in body weight compared to the diabetic and diabetic resistant mice. Moreover, after 8-weeks, diabetic mice (19.52 ± 3.52 s) have longer paw withdrawal latencies in the hot-plate test than diabetic resistant (11.36 ± 1.92 s) and control (11.03 ± 1.97 s) mice, that correlates with the installation of warm hypoalgesia due to the diabetic condition. Further on, we evidenced the decrease of Elav-like gene expression in DRG neurons of diabetic mice (Elavl2, 0.68 ± 0.05 fold; Elavl3, 0.65 ± 0.01 fold; Elavl4, 0.53 ± 0.07 fold) and diabetic resistant mice (Ealvl2, 0.56 ± 0.07 fold; Elavl3, 0.32 ± 0.09 fold) compared to control mice. Interestingly, Elav-like genes have a more accentuated downregulation in diabetic resistant than in diabetic mice, although hypoalgesia was evidenced only in diabetic mice. The Elav-like gene expression changes do not always correlate with the Hu protein expression changes. To detail, HuB is upregulated and HuD is downregulated in diabetic mice, while HuB, HuC, and HuD are downregulated in diabetic resistant mice compared to control mice. To resume, we demonstrated HuD downregulation and HuB upregulation in DRG sensory neurons induced by diabetes, which might be correlated with altered post-transcriptional control of RNAs involved in the regulation of thermal hypoalgesia condition caused by the advanced diabetic neuropathy.


2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 277
Author(s):  
L. A. Favetta ◽  
E. Van de Laar ◽  
W. A. King ◽  
J. LaMarre

The control of gene expression in the early embryo requires a highly regulated turnover of specific mRNA, particularly those of maternal origin, as the embryo becomes transcriptionally autonomous. In cattle, the period during which maternal transcripts persist can last 72 to 96 h or longer, suggesting a dynamic, regulated interplay between factors that protect transcripts before this point and those that subsequently facilitate decay. Some decay pathways for specific embryonic transcripts are now known, but many are not. In somatic cells, mRNA decay is often mediated by interactions between defined sequence elements (ARE) in the 3′ untranslated region of important target genes and specific RNA-binding proteins (AUBP) that promote or inhibit decay of the associated transcript. These have not been extensively characterized in embryos. We hypothesized that changes in the pattern of expression of one or several AUBP in the developing bovine embryo would support a role for these proteins in mRNA turnover and the control of gene expression. We, therefore, evaluated the expression of different AUBP (HuR, AUF1, TTP) in bovine oocytes and early embryos in vitro. Bovine oocytes obtained at slaughter were matured, fertilized, and cultured using standard protocols. Oocytes and embryos from different stages were either placed in Trizol for subsequent RNA isolation and RT-PCR analysis or fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde and subsequently processed for immunohistochemical detection of AUBP. Analysis by RT-PCR revealed that AUF1, an mRNA destabilizing protein, was expressed at all stages examined (immature oocyte, mature oocyte, 2 to 4 cells, 8 to 16 cells, morulae, and blastocyst) except in morulae. Another mRNA destabilizing protein, TTP, was expressed at the morula stage only. An mRNA stabilizing factor, HuR, was expressed at all stages except the morula. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that the pattern of protein expression for AUF1 and TTP essentially mirrored that observed at the RNA level as detected by RT-PCR. Together, these results show that AUBP expression in the early bovine embryo is dynamic, with RNA-binding proteins present at all times during development and changes in expression evident at the morula stage. This suggests that modification of presynthesized (i.e. maternal) AUBP is likely to control mRNA decay during the maternal to embryonic transition (8-cell stage) and that the expression of TTP at the morula stage might mark the onset of embryonic control of mRNA stability. Research was supported by NSERC, OMAFRA, and the Canada Research Chairs Program.


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