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: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:The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has evolutionarily conserved EV signaling pathways. In this study, we apply a recently published method for high specificity purification of EVs from C. elegans to carry out target-independent proteomic and RNA analysis of EVs from C. elegans. Our experiments uncovered diverse coding and non-coding RNA transcripts as well as protein cargo types commonly found in human EVs.
Project description:We have adapted the eXcision Repair-sequencing (XR-seq) method to generate single-nucleotide resolution dynamic repair maps of UV-induced cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPD) photoproducts in the Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) genome.
