Project description:The Cell Division Cycle and Apoptosis Regulator (CCAR) protein family members have recently emerged as regulators of alternative splicing and transcription, as well as having other key physiological functions. For example, mammalian CCAR2/DBC1 forms a complex with the zinc factor protein ZNF326 to integrate alternative splicing with RNA polymerase II transcriptional elongation in AT-rich regions of the DNA. Additionally, Caenorhabditis elegans CCAR-1, a homolog to mammalian CCAR2, facilitates the alternative splicing of the perlecan unc-52 gene. However, much about the CCAR family's role in alternative splicing is unknown. We are interested in uncovering the role of the CCAR family in alternative splicing in vivo using Caenorhabditis elegans. We examined the role of CCAR-1 in genome-wide alternative splicing and identified new alternative splicing targets of CCAR-1 using RNA sequencing. Also, we found that CCAR-1 interacts with the spliceosome factors UAF-1 and UAF-2 using mass spectrometry, and that knockdown of ccar-1 affects alternative splicing patterns, motility, and proteostasis of UAF-1 mutant worms. Collectively, we demonstrate a role for CCAR-1 in the regulation of global alternative splicing in C. elegans and in conjunction with UAF-1
Project description:Alternative splicing (AS) plays a crucial role in the diversification of gene function and regulation. Consequently, the systematic identification and characterization of temporally regulated splice variants is of critical importance to understanding animal development. We have used high-throughput RNA sequencing and microarray profiling to analyze AS in C. elegans across various stages of development. This analysis identified thousands of novel splicing events, including hundreds of developmentally regulated AS events. To make these data easily accessible and informative, we constructed the C. elegans Splice Browser, a web resource in which researchers can mine AS events of interest and retrieve information about their relative levels and regulation across development. The data presented in this study, along with the Splice Browser, provides the most comprehensive set of annotated splice variants in C. elegans to date, and is therefore expected to faciliate focused, high resolution in vivo functional assays of AS function. Alternative splicing events were identified from alignments of C. elegans mRNA/EST sequences (UniGene Build #26) to C. elegans genomic sequence (NCBI timestamp: Sept. 25, 2006), essentially as previously described (Pan et al. 2005; Pan et al. 2004). In total, 499 cassette type AS events were identified. For each AS event, 3 exon probes and 3 exon junction probes were designed to profile the AS event on the microarray, essentially as previously described (Pan et al. 2004). This submission represents the expression microarray component of the study.
Project description:Alternative splicing (AS) plays a crucial role in the diversification of gene function and regulation. Consequently, the systematic identification and characterization of temporally regulated splice variants is of critical importance to understanding animal development. We have used high-throughput RNA sequencing and microarray profiling to analyze AS in C. elegans across various stages of development. This analysis identified thousands of novel splicing events, including hundreds of developmentally regulated AS events. To make these data easily accessible and informative, we constructed the C. elegans Splice Browser, a web resource in which researchers can mine AS events of interest and retrieve information about their relative levels and regulation across development. The data presented in this study, along with the Splice Browser, provides the most comprehensive set of annotated splice variants in C. elegans to date, and is therefore expected to faciliate focused, high resolution in vivo functional assays of AS function.
Project description:Hypoxia-inducible transcription factor HIF is the key regulator of hypoxia response. It is conserved from human to the model organism C. elegans. The homolog of HIF in C. elegans is HIF-1. In C. elegans, there are six alternative splicing isoforms for HIF-1. Isoform a (HIF1a) is the predominant one with important biological functions for stress response and longevity. Here, by performing chromatin immunoprecipitation DNA-sequencing (ChIP-seq), we identified the direct targets for HIF-1a at whole genome level.
Project description:NF-κB-mediated signaling is maintained silent by the action of IκB proteins, whose canonical role is to sequester NF-κB in the cytoplasm. An alternative chromatin role for IκB members have been shown to affect stemness and cell differentiation but the involvement of NF-κB in this function has not been excluded. NFKI-1 and IKB-1 are IκB homologs in Caenorhabditis elegans, which lacks NF-κB nuclear effectors. nfki-1 and ikb-1 mutants present developmental defects that phenocopy mutations in Polycomb genes and demethylases as utx-1. suggesting a role for C. elegans IKB proteins in chromatin regulation, which is supported by various lines of evidence:(i) we detected NFKI-1 in the nucleus; (ii) NFKI-1 and IKB-1 bind to histones and Polycomb proteins, (iii) NFKI-1 and IKB-1 bind to chromatin in vivo, and (iv) mutations in nfki-1 and ikb-1 alter chromatin marks . Thus, ancestral IκB inhibitors may exert nuclear functions regulating of gene expression and development.