In eukaryotes, the 3'' ends of RNA polymerase II-generated transcripts are made in the majority of cases by site-specific endonucleolytic cleavage, followed by the addition of a poly(A) tail. By alternative polyadenylation, a gene can give rise to multiple mRNA isoforms that differ in the length of their 3'' UTRs and hence in their susceptibility to post-transcriptional regulatory factors such as microRNAs. A series of recently conducted high-throughput studies of poly(A) site usage revealed an extensive tissue-specific control of 3’ UTR length and drastic changes in 3’ UTR length of mRNAs upon induction of proliferation in resting cells. To understand the dynamics of polyadenylation site usage, we recently identified binding sites of the major pre-mRNA 3’ end processing factors - cleavage and polyadenylation specificity factor (CPSF), cleavage stimulation factor (CstF), and cleavage factor Im (CF Im) - and mapped cleaved polyadenylation sites in HEK293 cells. Our present study extends previous findings on the role of CF Im in alternative polyadenylation and reveals that subunits of the CF Im complex generally control 3’ UTR length. More specifically, we demonstrate that the loss-of-function of CF Im68 and CF Im25 but not of CF Im59 leads to a transcriptome-wide increase of the use of proximal polyadenylation sites. Overall design: 3'' ends of transcripts were profiled by high-throughput sequencing in HEK 293 cells under normal conditions, and in HEK 293 cells depleted of 3'' end processing factors CF Im25, CF Im59, and CF Im68.
Cleavage factor Im is a key regulator of 3' UTR length.
Cell line, Subject
View SamplesThe RNA helicase UPF1 is best known for its key function in mRNA nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD), but has also been implicated in additional mRNA turnover mechanisms, telomere homeostasis, and DNA replication. In NMD, UPF1 recruitment to target mRNAs is thought to occur through interaction with release factors at terminating ribosomes, but evidence for translation-independent interaction of UPF1 with the 3’ untranslated region (UTR) of mRNAs has also been reported. To map UPF1 binding sites transcriptome-wide, we performed individual-nucleotide resolution UV crosslinking and immunoprecipitation (iCLIP) in human cells, untreated or after inhibiting translation by puromycin. We found a strong association of UPF1 with 3’ UTRs in undisturbed, translationally active cells and a significant increase in UPF1 binding to coding sequence (CDS) after translation inhibition. These results indicate that UPF1 binds RNA before translation and gets displaced from the CDS by translating ribosomes. This evidence for translation-independent UPF1-RNA interaction, which is corroborated by RNA immunoprecipitations experiments and by our observation that UPF1 also crosslinks to long non-coding RNAs, suggests that the decision to trigger NMD occurs after association of UPF1 with the mRNA, presumably through activation of RNA-bound UPF1 by aberrant translation termination. Overall design: Examination of Upf1 binding preferences via iCLIP in untreated HeLa cells and HeLa cells, where translation is blocked by puromycin treatment in vivo crosslinking and immunoprecipitation strategy (iCLIP)
Translation-dependent displacement of UPF1 from coding sequences causes its enrichment in 3' UTRs.
Cell line, Subject
View SamplesThrough alternative polyadenylation, human mRNAs acquire longer or shorter 3'' untranslated regions, the latter typically associated with higher transcript stability and increased protein production. To understand the dynamics of polyadenylation site usage, we mapped transcriptome-wide both binding sites of 3'' end processing factors CPSF-160, CPSF-100, CPSF-73, CPSF-30, Fip1, CstF-64, CstF-64tau, CF Im25, CF Im59, and CF Im68 and 3'' end processing sites in HEK293 cells. We found that although binding sites of these factors generally cluster around the poly(A) sites most frequently used in cleavage, CstF-64/CstF-64tau and CF Im proteins have much higher positional specificity compared to CPSF components. Knockdown of CF Im68 induced a systematic use of proximal polyadenylation sites, indicating that changes in relative abundance of a single 3'' end processing factor can modulate the length of 3'' untranslated regions transcriptome-wide, and suggesting a mechanism behind the previously observed increase in tumor cell invasiveness upon CF Im68 knockdown. Overall design: 3'' ends of transcripts were profiled by high-throughput sequencing in HEK 293 cells under normal conditions, and in HEK 293 cells depleted of 3'' end processing factors CF Im 68 and CstF-64.
Genome-wide analysis of pre-mRNA 3' end processing reveals a decisive role of human cleavage factor I in the regulation of 3' UTR length.
Cell line, Subject
View SamplesWe analyzed small RNAs from three mammalian species, and found that in all these species piRNA-directed targeting is accompanied by the generation of short sequences that have a very precisely defined length and a specific spatial relationship with the guide piRNAs. Overall design: small RNA-seq of testes lysate (beta-eliminated)
Conserved generation of short products at piRNA loci.
No sample metadata fields
View SamplesRelative contribution of sequence and structural features to the mRNA-binding of Argonaute/miRNA complexes and the degradation of miRNA targets
Relative contribution of sequence and structure features to the mRNA binding of Argonaute/EIF2C-miRNA complexes and the degradation of miRNA targets.
No sample metadata fields
View SamplesCrosslinking and immunoprecipitation (CLIP) is increasingly used to map transcriptome-wide binding sites of RNA-binding proteins (RBPs). We developed a method for CLIP data analysis and applied it to compare 254 nm CLIP with PAR-CLIP, which involves crosslinking of photoreactive nucleotides with 365 nm UV light. We found small differences in the accuracy of these methods in identifying binding sites of HuR, a protein that binds low-complexity sequences and Argonaute 2, which has a complex binding specificity. We show that crosslink-induced mutations lead to single-nucleotide resolution for both PAR-CLIP and CLIP. Our results confirm the expectation from original CLIP publications that RNA-binding proteins do not protect sufficiently their sites under the denaturing conditions used during the CLIP procedure, and we show that extensive digestion with sequence-specific ribonucleases strongly biases the set of recovered binding sites. We finally show that this bias can be substantially reduced by milder nuclease digestion conditions. Overall design: We performed duplicate experiments for each variant of the CLIP protocol (CLIP, PAR-CLIP), each protein (HuR, Ago2), and enzymatic digestion (complete T1 digestion, mild MNase digestion). In addition, we performed a single PAR-CLIP experiment with mild T1 digestion.
A quantitative analysis of CLIP methods for identifying binding sites of RNA-binding proteins.
No sample metadata fields
View SamplesSmall RNAs, such as miRNAs and siRNAs, are involved in gene regulation in a variety of systems, including mouse oocytes. Dicer is a ribonuclease III enzyme essential for miRNA and siRNA biosynthesis. In an effort to uncover the function of small RNAs during oocyte growth, we specifically deleted Dicer in growing oocytes and analyzed the global pattern of gene expression in these Dicer-deficient oocytes.
MicroRNA activity is suppressed in mouse oocytes.
Sex, Specimen part
View SamplesSmall interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) guide catalytic sequence-specific cleavage of fully or nearly fully complementary target mRNAs or control translation and/or stability of many mRNAs that share 6-8 nucleotides (nt) of complementarity to the siRNA and miRNA 5' end. siRNA- and miRNA-containing ribonucleoprotein silencing complexes are assembled from double-stranded 21- to 23-nt RNase III processing intermediates that carry 5' phosphates and 2-nt overhangs with free 3' hydroxyl groups. Despite the structural symmetry of a duplex siRNA, the nucleotide sequence asymmetry can generate a bias for preferred loading of one of the two duplex-forming strands into the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). Here we show that the 5'-phosphorylation status of the siRNA strands also acts as an important determinant for strand selection. 5'-O-methylated siRNA duplexes refractory to 5' phosphorylation were examined for their biases in siRNA strand selection. Asymmetric, single methylation of siRNA duplexes reduced the occupancy of the silencing complex by the methylated strand with concomitant elimination of its off-targeting signature and enhanced off-targeting signature of the phosphorylated strand. Methylation of both siRNA strands reduced but did not completely abolish RNA silencing, without affecting strand selection relative to that of the unmodified siRNA. We conclude that asymmetric 5' modification of siRNA duplexes can be useful for controlling targeting specificity.
Strand-specific 5'-O-methylation of siRNA duplexes controls guide strand selection and targeting specificity.
No sample metadata fields
View SamplesHuman transcripts can typically be processed at multiple polyadenylation sites to yield mRNA isoforms with distinct 3 ends. A multitude of factors contributes to the choice of individual polyadenylation sites in different cell types and tissues. In this study we have found that the heterogenous ribonucleoprotein C (hnRNP C), an RNA binding protein that was previously linked to splicing and polyadenylation at Alu repeat elements, is a general regulator of pre-mRNA cleavage and polyadenylation. By sequencing mRNA 3 ends from cells expressing normal and reduced levels of hnRNP C we found that transcripts that contain poly(U) tracts around their poly(A) sites respond in a manner indicative of hnRNP C repressing cleavage and polyadenylation. The 3 UTR isoforms whose abundance is modulated by hnRNP C contain U-rich elements and can thereby interact with A/U-rich element binding proteins that have been shown to alter transcript stability, sub-cellular localization and even the localization of the translated proteins.
A comprehensive analysis of 3' end sequencing data sets reveals novel polyadenylation signals and the repressive role of heterogeneous ribonucleoprotein C on cleavage and polyadenylation.
No sample metadata fields
View SamplesWe have analyzed the transcript expression levels in Dicer heterozygous and Dicer knock-out embryonic stem (ES) cells in order to identify which transcripts are regulated by RNAi pathway in mouse ES cells.
MicroRNAs control de novo DNA methylation through regulation of transcriptional repressors in mouse embryonic stem cells.
No sample metadata fields
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