Project description:We report that knockdown of EJC core proteins, eIF4A3, Y14, Magoh, causes a transcript-wide changes in alternative splicing, as well as some transcriptional changes. These changes are specific to EJC core proteins, and KD of UPF1 protein caused different sets of alterantive splicing changes. These changes are linked to the rate of transcription.
Project description:We report that knockdown of EJC core proteins, eIF4A3, Y14, Magoh, causes a transcript-wide changes in alternative splicing, as well as some transcriptional changes. These changes are specific to EJC core proteins, and KD of UPF1 protein caused different sets of alterantive splicing changes. These changes are linked to the rate of transcription. Examination of 4 different knockdown, as well as GFP knockdown in HeLa cells, 2 replicates each condition.
Project description:The Exon Junction Complex (EJC) is formed by the essential eIF4A3, MAGOH and Y14 core proteins. It is universally deposited during splicing at exon-exon junctions. The EJC is known to impact almost every post-transcriptional regulatory step throughout the life of mRNAs including their modifications, splicing, decay and trafficking. Its dysregulation leads to neurodevelopmental pathologies. Here we show that EJC-i, a compound known to block the ATPase activity of eIF4A3, inhibits de novo EJC assembly. EJC-i and targeted knockdown of either eIF4A3 or Y14 core EJC subunits lead to very similar phenotypes by impacting the destiny of mRNAs due to alterations in alternative splicing, nonsense-mediated mRNA decay, genome-wide m6A methylation and proper intracellular addressing of specific transcripts, in particular to the centrosome. Both EJC impairment methods disrupt the centrosome structure that might be responsible for mitotic arrest at prometaphase. However, as a small molecule that readily diffuses into cells, EJC-i is a particularly attractive easy to use and versatile tool to investigate EJC functions in live cells or whole organism that are not prone to genetic manipulation. Indeed, this property was used to disrupt ciliogenesis in primary neural stem cells.
Project description:In metazoans, mRNA quality is tightly monitored from transcription to translation. A key role lies with the exon junction complex (EJC) that is placed upstream of the exon-exon junction after splicing. The EJC inner core is composed of Magoh, Y14, eIF4AIII and BTZ and the outer core of proteins involved in mRNA splicing (CWC22), export (Yra1), translation (PYM) and non-sense mediated decay (NMD, UPF1/2/3). The protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei encodes only two genes with introns, but all mRNAs are processed by trans-splicing. The presence of the three core EJC proteins and a potential BTZ homologue (Rbp25) in trypanosomes has been suggested as an adaptation of the EJC function to mark trans-spliced mRNAs. Here we explore the interactome of Magoh, Y14, eIF4AIII in T. brucei by TurboID proximity labelling.
Project description:Using the TSG101 pre-mRNA, we previously discovered cancer-specific re-splicing of mature mRNA that generates aberrant transcripts/proteins. The fact that mRNA is aberrantly re-spliced in various cancer cells implies there must be an important mechanism to prevent deleterious re-splicing on the spliced mRNA in normal cells. We thus postulated that the mRNA re-splicing is controlled by specific repressors and we searched for repressor candidates by siRNA-based screening for mRNA re-splicing activity. We found that knock-down of EIF4A3, which is a core component of the exon junction complex (EJC), significantly promoted mRNA re-splicing. Remarkably, we could recapitulate cancer-specific mRNA re-splicing in normal cells by knock-down of any of the core EJC proteins, EIF4A3, MAGOH or RBM8A (Y14), implicating the EJC core as the repressor of mRNA re-splicing often observed in cancer cells. We propose that the EJC core is a critical mRNA quality control factor to prevent over-splicing of mature mRNA.