Project description:Specific environmental insults cause the limited fragmentation of transfer RNAs (tRNAs) into tRNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs), which have been implicated in a wide range of biological processes. tRNA fragmentation results from endonucleolytic activities targeting single-stranded tRNA regions. However, how a tRNA with a single hydrolyzed phosphodiester bond in the anticodon loop (‘nicked’ tRNA) gives rise to distinct tsRNAs remains poorly understood. After identifying RNA helicases that were able to unwind ‘nicked’ tRNAs in vitro, the specificity of one of those enzymes, DDX3X, was determined by RNA helicase assays on tRNAs, which had been subjected to recombinant Angiogenin. Both in vivo ‘nicked’ tRNAs, DDX3X-unwound ‘nicked’ tRNAs as well as heat-denatured ‘nicked’ tRNAs were subjected to small RNA sequencing.
Project description:Eukaryotic transfer RNAs (tRNA) contain on average 13 modifications that perform a wide range of roles in translation and in the generation of tRNA fragments that regulate gene expression. Queuosine (Q) modification occurs in the wobble anticodon position of tRNAs for amino acids His, Asn, Tyr, and Asp. In eukaryotes, Q modification is fully dependent on diet or on gut microbiome in multi-cellular organisms. Despite decades of study, cellular roles of Q modification remain to be fully elucidated. Here we show that in human cells, Q modification specifically protects its cognate tRNAHis and tRNAAsn against cleavage by ribonucleases. We generated cell lines that contain completely depleted or fully Q-modified tRNAs. Using these resources, we found that Q modification significantly reduces angiogenin cleavage of its cognate tRNAs in vitro. Q modification does not change the cellular abundance of the cognate full-length tRNAs, but alters the cellular content of their fragments in vivo in the absence and presence of stress. Our results provide a new biological aspect of Q modification and a mechanism of how Q modification alters small RNA pool in human cells.
Project description:During stress conditions, particular tRNAs are cleaved by stress-induced endonucleases resulting in distinct tRNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs). These small RNAs have been implicated in a wide array of mostly stress-related biological processes, however how exactly they exert their functions mechanistically is still largely unknown. Since parental tRNAs carry post-transcriptional modifications, stress-induced tsRNAs are likely modified, too. In order to use endogenously modified tsRNAs, we developed a biochemical pipeline for the production and purification of specific tsRNAs using a human cell culture system. Ectopic expression of Angiogenin combined with chromatography of small RNAs resulted in the production of endogenously modified 5’ tsRNAs on a preparative scale. Small RNA sequencing on purified tsRNAs was used to determine the identity and purity of the 5’ tsRNA preparations.
Project description:We used MIST (Microarray Identification of Shifted tRNAs), a previously established in vitro approach, to systematically assess the specificity of complexes between native H. sapiens tRNAs and recombinant P. falciparum tRip. We demonstrate that tRip unexpectedly binds to host tRNAs with a wide range of specificities, suggesting that only a small subset of human tRNAs are preferentially imported into the parasite.
Project description:To identify tRNA fragments regulated by angiogenin (ANG, Rnase 5), we sequenced 15-50nt small RNAs upon ANG overexpression and ANG knockout.
Project description:Specific environmental insults cause the limited fragmentation of transfer RNAs (tRNAs) into tRNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs), which have been implicated in a wide range of biological processes. tRNA fragmentation results from endonucleolytic activities targeting single-stranded tRNA regions. However, how a tRNA with a single hydrolyzed phosphodiester bond in the anticodon loop (‘nicked’ tRNA) gives rise to distinct tsRNAs remains poorly understood. By utilizing biochemical fractionation of tsRNA-containing ribonucleoprotein complexes (RNPs) coupled with LC-MS/MS, we identified several RNA helicase enzymes that represent putative tRNA/tsRNA processing enzymes. Furthermore, a combination of biochemical and computational approaches revealed that specific RNA helicases indeed bind specific tRNAs with high affinity, as well as process nicked tRNAs into individual tsRNAs. In summary, these findings reveal that tRNA-derived duplexes can be substrates of well-known RNA helicases, thereby expanding their potential for cellular function to the creation of individual tsRNAs during the cellular stress response.
Project description:Mutations in the cytosine-5 RNA methyltransferase NSun2 can cause Intellectual Disability (ID) and symptoms commonly found in patients with Dubowitz syndrome. By analysing gene expression data with the global cytosine-5 RNA methylome in NSun2-deficient mice, we find that loss of cytosine-5 RNA methylation increases the fragmentation of transfer RNAs (tRNA) leading to an accumulation of 5M-bM-^@M-^Y halves. Cleavage of tRNAs by Angiogenin is a common cellular stress response to silence translational programmes, and we show that Angiogenin binds tRNAs lacking site-specific NSun2-methylation with higher affinity. Furthermore, cells lacking functional NSun2 up-regulate stress markers, and deletion of NSun2 compromises cellular survival in response stress stimuli including UV-light and oxidative stress. The decreased tolerance of NSun2 null cells towards oxidative stress can be rescued through inhibition of Angiogenin. In conclusion, cytosine-5 RNA methylation is an essential post-transcriptional mechanism during cellular stress responses and NSun2-mediated tRNA methylation protects from Angiogenin-dependent stress-induced RNA cleavage. RNA Methylation profiling by high throughput sequencing small non-coding RNA profiling by high throughput sequencing Pol III Chromatin-IP profiling by high throughput sequencing
Project description:The CCA-adding enzyme adds CCA to the 3' ends of transfer RNAs (tRNAs), a critical step in tRNA biogenesis that generates the amino acid attachment site. We found that the CCA-adding enzyme plays a key role in tRNA quality control by selectively marking unstable tRNAs and tRNA-like small RNAs for degradation. Instead of adding CCA to the 3' ends of these transcripts, CCA-adding enzymes from all three kingdoms of life add CCACCA. Here, we report deep sequencing analysis of the 3' ends of tRNA-Ser-CGA and tRNA-Ser-UGA from S. cerevisiae strains and show that hypomodified mature tRNAs are subjected to CCACCA (or poly(A) addition) as part of a rapid tRNA decay pathway in vivo. We conjecture that CCACCA addtion is a universal mechanism for controlling tRNA levels and preventing errors in translation. 121 samples analyzed in total, representing time courses of 10 different yeast strains; Biological replicates for each time point are included
Project description:Severe angiopathy is a major driver for diabetes associated secondary complications. Knowledge on underlying mechanisms essential for advanced therapies to attenuate these pathologies is limited. Injection of ABCB5+ stromal precursors (SPs) at the edge of non-healing diabetic wounds in a murine db/db model, closely mirroring human type II diabetes, profoundly accelerates wound closure. Strikingly, enhanced angiogenesis was substantially enforced by the release of the ribonuclease angiogenin from ABCB5+ SPs. This compensates for the profoundly reduced angiogenin expression in non-treated murine and human chronic diabetic wounds. Silencing of angiogenin in ABCB5+ SPs prior to injection significantly reduced angiogenesis, reduced numbers of M2 macrophages and delayed wound closure in diabetic db/db mice implying an unprecedented key role for angiogenin in tissue regeneration in diabetes. These data hold significant promise for further refining SPs-based therapies of non-healing diabetic foot ulcers and other pathologies with impaired angiogenesis.