167. MUSASHI FAMILY OF RNA BINDING PROTEINS: CELL CYCLE REGULATORS IN SPERMATOGENESIS

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (9) ◽  
pp. 85
Author(s):  
E. A. McLaughlin ◽  
B. A. Fraser ◽  
V. Pye ◽  
M. Bigland ◽  
N. A. Siddall ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cell Cycle ◽  
Cell Differentiation ◽  
Germ Cell ◽  
Binding Proteins ◽  
Rna Binding ◽  
Rna Binding Proteins ◽  
Translational Repression ◽  
Germ Cell Differentiation ◽  
Pachytene Spermatocytes

Mammalian meiosis is a tightly regulated process involving specialized cell cycle progression and morphogenetic changes. We have demonstrated that the Musashi family of RNA binding proteins is implicated in the regulation of spermatogonial stem self renewal and germ cell differentiation. Here we describe the novel mechanism by which the Musashi family proteins, Msi1 and Msi2, act to control exit from spermatogonial mitotic amplification and normal entry into meiosis. Gene and protein analysis indicated overlapping Msi1 and Msi2 profiles in enriched populations of isolated germ cells and reciprocal subcellular expression patterns in spermatogonia and pachytene spermatocytes/ round spermatids in testes sections. Recombinant Msi1 protein-RNA pulldown and microarray analysis coupled with in vitro shRNA knockdown studies in spermatogonial culture and subsequent immunoprecipitation and qPCR established that Msi1 targeted Msi2 mRNA for post transcriptional translational repression. Immunoprecipitation of Msi2 target mRNA and subsequent qPCR together with in vitro shRNA knockdown studies inround spermatidculture identified a cell cycle inhibitor protein CDKN1C (p57kip2) as the principal target of Msi2 translational inhibition. Immunolocalisation of CDKN1C protein indicated that expression of this cell cycle regulator coincided with the nuclear import of Msi1 and the appearance of cytoplasmic Msi2 expression in early pachytene spermatocytes. Using a transgenic Msi1 overexpression mouse model in conjunction with quantitative gene and protein expression, we confirmed Msi1 targeting of Msi2 and subsequent Msi2 targeting of CDKN1C for translational repression in vivo. Ectopic overexpression of Msi1 in germ cellsinduces substantial Msi2 downregulation and aberrant CDKN1C expression, resulting in abnormal spermatogenic differentiation, germ cell apoptosis/arrest and sterility. In conclusion, our results indicate a sophisticated molecular switch encompassing cell cycle protein regulation by Musashi family proteins, is required for normal exit from mitotic division, entry into meiosis and post meiotic germ cell differentiation.

scholarly journals Genetic and structural analysis of the in vivo functional redundancy between murine NANOS2 and NANOS3

Development ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. dev.191916
Author(s):  
Danelle Wright ◽  
Makoto Kiso ◽  
Yumiko Saga
Keyword(s):  
Germ Cell ◽  
Germ Cells ◽  
Rna Binding ◽  
Rna Binding Proteins ◽  
Double Knockout ◽  
Germ Cell Differentiation ◽  
Evolutionarily Conserved ◽  
Male Specific

NANOS2 and NANOS3 are evolutionarily conserved RNA-binding proteins involved in murine germ cell development. NANOS3 is required for protection from apoptosis during migration and gonadal colonization in both sexes, whereas NANOS2 is male-specific and required for the male-type differentiation of germ cells. Ectopic NANOS2 rescues the functions of NANOS3, but NANOS3 cannot rescue NANOS2 function even though its expression is up-regulated in Nanos2-null conditions. It is unknown why NANOS3 cannot rescue NANOS2 function and it is unclear whether NANOS3 plays any role in male germ cell differentiation. To address these questions, we made conditional Nanos3/Nanos2 knockout mice and chimeric mice expressing chimeric NANOS proteins. Conditional double knockout of Nanos2 and 3 led to the rapid loss of germ cells, and in vivo and in vitro experiments revealed that DND1 and NANOS2 binding is dependent on the specific NANOS2 zinc finger structure. Moreover, murine NANOS3 failed to bind CNOT1, an interactor of NANOS2 at its N-terminal. Collectively, our study suggests that the inability of NANOS3 to rescue NANOS2 function is due to poor DND1 recruitment and CNOT1 binding.

scholarly journals A testis cytoplasmic RNA-binding protein that has the properties of a translational repressor.

1996 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 3023-3034 ◽  
Author(s):  
K Lee ◽  
M A Fajardo ◽  
R E Braun
Keyword(s):  
Germ Cell ◽  
Untranslated Region ◽  
Rna Binding ◽  
Binding Protein ◽  
Rna Binding Protein ◽  
Male Germ Cell ◽  
Translational Repression ◽  
Translational Repressor ◽  
Germ Cell Differentiation

Translation of the mouse protamine 1 (Prm-1) mRNA is repressed for several days during male germ cell differentiation. With the hope of cloning genes that regulate the translational repression of Prm-1, we screened male germ cell cDNA expression libraries with the 3' untranslated region of the Prm-1 RNA. From this screen we obtained two independent clones that encode Prbp, a Prm-1 RNA-binding protein. Prbp contains two copies of a double-stranded-RNA-binding domain. In vitro, the protein binds to a portion of the Prm-1 3' untranslated region previously shown to be sufficient for translational repression in transgenic mice, as well as to poly(I). poly(C). Prbp protein is present in multiple forms in cytoplasmic extracts prepared from wild-type mouse testes and is absent from testes of germ cell-deficient mouse mutants, suggesting that Prbp is restricted to the germ cells of the testis. Immunocytochemical localization confirmed that Prbp is present in the cytoplasmic compartment of late-stage meiotic cells and haploid round spermatids. Recombinant Prbp protein inhibits the translation of multiple mRNAs in a wheat germ lysate, suggesting that Prbp acts to repress translation in round spermatids. While this protein lacks complete specificity for Prm-1-containing RNAs in vitro, the properties of Prbp are consistent with it acting as a general repressor of translation.

scholarly journals Identification of mRNAs Associated with αCP2-Containing RNP Complexes

2003 ◽  
Vol 23 (19) ◽  
pp. 7055-7067 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelly A. Waggoner ◽  
Stephen A. Liebhaber
Keyword(s):  
Binding Proteins ◽  
Rna Binding ◽  
Cell Function ◽  
Rna Binding Proteins ◽  
Translation Control ◽  
Viral Mrnas ◽  
Posttranscriptional Gene Regulation ◽  
Direct Binding

ABSTRACT Posttranscriptional controls in higher eukaryotes are central to cell differentiation and developmental programs. These controls reflect sequence-specific interactions of mRNAs with one or more RNA binding proteins. The α-globin poly(C) binding proteins (αCPs) comprise a highly abundant subset of K homology (KH) domain RNA binding proteins and have a characteristic preference for binding single-stranded C-rich motifs. αCPs have been implicated in translation control and stabilization of multiple cellular and viral mRNAs. To explore the full contribution of αCPs to cell function, we have identified a set of mRNAs that associate in vivo with the major αCP2 isoforms. One hundred sixty mRNA species were consistently identified in three independent analyses of αCP2-RNP complexes immunopurified from a human hematopoietic cell line (K562). These mRNAs could be grouped into subsets encoding cytoskeletal components, transcription factors, proto-oncogenes, and cell signaling factors. Two mRNAs were linked to ceroid lipofuscinosis, indicating a potential role for αCP2 in this infantile neurodegenerative disease. Surprisingly, αCP2 mRNA itself was represented in αCP2-RNP complexes, suggesting autoregulatory control of αCP2 expression. In vitro analyses of representative target mRNAs confirmed direct binding of αCP2 within their 3′ untranslated regions. These data expand the list of mRNAs that associate with αCP2 in vivo and establish a foundation for modeling its role in coordinating pathways of posttranscriptional gene regulation.

scholarly journals SSMART: Sequence-structure motif identification for RNA-binding proteins

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina Munteanu ◽  
Neelanjan Mukherjee ◽  
Uwe Ohler
Keyword(s):  
Binding Sites ◽  
Binding Proteins ◽  
Rna Binding ◽  
Rna Binding Proteins ◽  
Sequence Motif ◽  
Primary Sequence ◽  
Sequence Structure ◽  
Rna Targets

AbstractMotivationRNA-binding proteins (RBPs) regulate every aspect of RNA metabolism and function. There are hundreds of RBPs encoded in the eukaryotic genomes, and each recognize its RNA targets through a specific mixture of RNA sequence and structure properties. For most RBPs, however, only a primary sequence motif has been determined, while the structure of the binding sites is uncharacterized.ResultsWe developed SSMART, an RNA motif finder that simultaneously models the primary sequence and the structural properties of the RNA targets sites. The sequence-structure motifs are represented as consensus strings over a degenerate alphabet, extending the IUPAC codes for nucleotides to account for secondary structure preferences. Evaluation on synthetic data showed that SSMART is able to recover both sequence and structure motifs implanted into 3‘UTR-like sequences, for various degrees of structured/unstructured binding sites. In addition, we successfully used SSMART on high-throughput in vivo and in vitro data, showing that we not only recover the known sequence motif, but also gain insight into the structural preferences of the RBP.AvailabilitySSMART is freely available at https://ohlerlab.mdc-berlin.de/software/SSMART_137/[email protected]

scholarly journals A deep learning framework to predict binding preference of RNA constituents on protein surface

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordy Homing Lam ◽  
Yu Li ◽  
Lizhe Zhu ◽  
Ramzan Umarov ◽  
Hanlun Jiang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Deep Learning ◽  
Protein Structure ◽  
Binding Proteins ◽  
Rna Binding ◽  
Rna Binding Proteins ◽  
Binding Preference ◽  
Rna Backbone ◽  
Binding Pockets ◽  
Rna Interaction

Abstract Protein-RNA interaction plays important roles in post-transcriptional regulation. However, the task of predicting these interactions given a protein structure is difficult. Here we show that, by leveraging a deep learning model NucleicNet, attributes such as binding preference of RNA backbone constituents and different bases can be predicted from local physicochemical characteristics of protein structure surface. On a diverse set of challenging RNA-binding proteins, including Fem-3-binding-factor 2, Argonaute 2 and Ribonuclease III, NucleicNet can accurately recover interaction modes discovered by structural biology experiments. Furthermore, we show that, without seeing any in vitro or in vivo assay data, NucleicNet can still achieve consistency with experiments, including RNAcompete, Immunoprecipitation Assay, and siRNA Knockdown Benchmark. NucleicNet can thus serve to provide quantitative fitness of RNA sequences for given binding pockets or to predict potential binding pockets and binding RNAs for previously unknown RNA binding proteins.

scholarly journals A novel methyltransferase (Hmt1p) modifies poly(A)+-RNA-binding proteins.

1996 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. 3668-3678 ◽  
Author(s):  
M F Henry ◽  
P A Silver
Keyword(s):  
Normal Cell ◽  
Binding Proteins ◽  
Rna Binding ◽  
Rna Binding Proteins ◽  
Temperature Sensitive ◽  
Arginine Residues ◽  
Cognate Gene ◽  
Heterogeneous Nuclear Ribonucleoproteins

RNA-binding proteins play many essential roles in the metabolism of nuclear pre-mRNA. As such, they demonstrate a myriad of dynamic behaviors and modifications. In particular, heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins (hnRNPs) contain the bulk of methylated arginine residues in eukaryotic cells. We have identified the first eukaryotic hnRNP-specific methyltransferase via a genetic screen for proteins that interact with an abundant poly(A)+-RNA-binding protein termed Npl3p. We have previously shown that npl3-1 mutants are temperature sensitive for growth and defective for export of mRNA from the nucleus. New mutants in interacting genes were isolated by their failure to survive in the presence of the npl3-1 allele. Four alleles of the same gene were identified in this manner. Cloning of the cognate gene revealed an encoded protein with similarity to methyltransferases that was termed HMT1 for hnRNP methyltransferase. HMT1 is not required for normal cell viability except when NPL3 is also defective. The Hmt1 protein is located in the nucleus. We demonstrate that Npl3p is methylated by Hmt1p both in vivo and in vitro. These findings now allow further exploration of the function of this previously uncharacterized class of enzymes.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document