Structure and function of nematode RNA-binding proteins

Structural recognition of the mRNA 3' UTR by PUF-8 restricts the lifespan of C. elegans

The molecular mechanisms of aging are unsolved fundamental biological questions. Caenorhabditis elegans is an ideal model organism for investigating aging. PUF-8, a PUF (Pumilio and FBF) protein in C. elegans, is crucial for germline development through binding with the 3′ untranslated regions (3′ UTR) in the target mRNAs. Recently, PUF-8 was reported to alter mitochondrial dynamics and mitophagy by regulating MFF-1, a mitochondrial fission factor, and subsequently regulated longevity. Here, we determined the crystal structure of the PUF domain of PUF-8 with an RNA substrate. Mutagenesis experiments were performed to alter PUF-8 recognition of its target mRNAs. Those mutations reduced the fertility and extended the lifespan of C. elegans. Deep sequencing of total mRNAs from wild-type and puf-8 mutant worms as well as in vivo RNA Crosslinking and Immunoprecipitation (CLIP) experiments identified six PUF-8 regulated genes, which contain at least one PUF-binding element (PBE) at the 3′ UTR. One of the six genes, pqm-1, is crucial for lipid storage and aging process. Knockdown of pqm-1 could revert the lifespan extension of puf-8 mutant animals. We conclude that PUF-8 regulate the lifespan of C. elegans may not only via MFF but also via modulating pqm-1-related pathways.

Multilevel regulation of muscle-specific transcription factor hlh-1 during Caenorhabditis elegans embryogenesis

hlh-1 is a myogenic transcription factor required for body-wall muscle specification during embryogenesis in Caenorhabditis elegans. Despite its well-known role in muscle specification, comprehensive regulatory control upstream of hlh-1 remains poorly defined. Here, we first established a statistical reference for the spatiotemporal expression of hlh-1 at single-cell resolution up to the second last round of divisions for most of the cell lineages (from 4- to 350-cell stage) using 13 wild-type embryos. We next generated lineal expression of hlh-1 after RNA interference (RNAi) perturbation of 65 genes, which were selected based on their degree of conservation, mutant phenotypes, and known roles in development. We then compared the expression profiles between wild-type and RNAi embryos by clustering according to their lineal expression patterns using mean-shift and density-based clustering algorithms, which not only confirmed the roles of existing genes but also uncovered the potential functions of novel genes in muscle specification at multiple levels, including cellular, lineal, and embryonic levels. By combining the public data on protein-protein interactions, protein-DNA interactions, and genetic interactions with our RNAi data, we inferred regulatory pathways upstream of hlh-1 that function globally or locally. This work not only revealed diverse and multilevel regulatory mechanisms coordinating muscle differentiation during C. elegans embryogenesis but also laid a foundation for further characterizing the regulatory pathways controlling muscle specification at the cellular, lineal (local), or embryonic (global) level.

Evolutionary Conservation and Diversification of Puf RNA Binding Proteins and Their mRNA Targets

Reprogramming of a gene’s expression pattern by acquisition and loss of sequences recognized by specific regulatory RNA binding proteins may be a major mechanism in the evolution of biological regulatory programs. We identified that RNA targets of Puf3 orthologs have been conserved over 100–500 million years of evolution in five eukaryotic lineages. Focusing on Puf proteins and their targets across 80 fungi, we constructed a parsimonious model for their evolutionary history. This model entails extensive and coordinated changes in the Puf targets as well as changes in the number of Puf genes and alterations of RNA binding specificity including that: 1) Binding of Puf3 to more than 200 RNAs whose protein products are predominantly involved in the production and organization of mitochondrial complexes predates the origin of budding yeasts and filamentous fungi and was maintained for 500 million years, throughout the evolution of budding yeast. 2) In filamentous fungi, remarkably, more than 150 of the ancestral Puf3 targets were gained by Puf4, with one lineage maintaining both Puf3 and Puf4 as regulators and a sister lineage losing Puf3 as a regulator of these RNAs. The decrease in gene expression of these mRNAs upon deletion of Puf4 in filamentous fungi (N. crassa) in contrast to the increase upon Puf3 deletion in budding yeast (S. cerevisiae) suggests that the output of the RNA regulatory network is different with Puf4 in filamentous fungi than with Puf3 in budding yeast. 3) The coregulated Puf4 target set in filamentous fungi expanded to include mitochondrial genes involved in the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle and other nuclear-encoded RNAs with mitochondrial function not bound by Puf3 in budding yeast, observations that provide additional evidence for substantial rewiring of post-transcriptional regulation. 4) Puf3 also expanded and diversified its targets in filamentous fungi, gaining interactions with the mRNAs encoding the mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) complex I as well as hundreds of other mRNAs with nonmitochondrial functions. The many concerted and conserved changes in the RNA targets of Puf proteins strongly support an extensive role of RNA binding proteins in coordinating gene expression, as originally proposed by Keene. Rewiring of Puf-coordinated mRNA targets and transcriptional control of the same genes occurred at different points in evolution, suggesting that there have been distinct adaptations via RNA binding proteins and transcription factors. The changes in Puf targets and in the Puf proteins indicate an integral involvement of RNA binding proteins and their RNA targets in the adaptation, reprogramming, and function of gene expression.

A map of the evolutionary history of Puf proteins and their RNA targets shows that reprogramming of global gene expression programs via adaptive mutations that affect protein-RNA interactions is an important source of biological diversity.

We set out to trace the evolutionary history of an RNA binding protein and how its interactions with targets change over evolution. Identifying this natural history is a step toward understanding the critical differences between organisms and how gene expression programs are rewired during evolution. Using bioinformatics and experimental approaches, we broadly surveyed the evolution of binding targets of a particular family of RNA binding proteins—the Puf proteins, whose protein sequences and target RNA sequences are relatively well-characterized—across 99 eukaryotic species. We found five groups of species in which targets have been conserved for at least 100 million years and then took advantage of genome sequences from a large number of fungal species to deeply investigate the conservation and changes in Puf proteins and their RNA targets. Our analyses identified multiple and extensive reconfigurations during the natural history of fungi and suggest that RNA binding proteins and their RNA targets are profoundly involved in evolutionary reprogramming of gene expression and help define distinct programs unique to each organism. Continuing to uncover the natural history of RNA binding proteins and their interactions will provide a unique window into the gene expression programs of present day species and point to new ways to engineer gene expression programs.

Computationally predicting protein-RNA interactions using only positive and unlabeled examples

Protein–RNA interactions (PRIs) are considerably important in a wide variety of cellular processes, ranging from transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulations of gene expression to the active defense of host against virus. With the development of high throughput technology, large amounts of PRI information is available for computationally predicting unknown PRIs. In recent years, a number of computational methods for predicting PRIs have been developed in the literature, which usually artificially construct negative samples based on verified nonredundant datasets of PRIs to train classifiers. However, such negative samples are not real negative samples, some even may be unknown positive samples. Consequently, the classifiers trained with such training datasets cannot achieve satisfactory prediction performance. In this paper, we propose a novel method PRIPU that employs biased-support vector machine (SVM) for predicting Protein-RNA Interactions using only Positive and Unlabeled examples. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that predicts PRIs using only positive and unlabeled samples. We first collect known PRIs as our benchmark datasets and extract sequence-based features to represent each PRI. To reduce the dimension of feature vectors for lowering computational cost, we select a subset of features by a filter-based feature selection method. Then, biased-SVM is employed to train prediction models with different PRI datasets. To evaluate the new method, we also propose a new performance measure called explicit positive recall (EPR), which is specifically suitable for the task of learning positive and unlabeled data. Experimental results over three datasets show that our method not only outperforms four existing methods, but also is able to predict unknown PRIs. Source code, datasets and related documents of PRIPU are available at: http://admis.fudan.edu.cn/projects/pripu.htm .

Cytoplasmic localization and asymmetric division in the early embryo of Caenorhabditis elegans

During the initial cleavages of the Caenorhabditis elegans embryo, a series of rapid and invariant asymmetric cell divisions pattern the fate, size, and position of four somatic blastomeres and a single germline blastomere. These asymmetric divisions are orchestrated by a collection of maternally deposited factors that are initially symmetrically distributed in the newly fertilized embryo. Maturation of the sperm-derived centrosome in the posterior cytoplasm breaks this symmetry by triggering a dramatic and highly stereotyped partitioning of these maternal factors. A network of conserved cell polarity regulators, the PAR proteins, form distinct anterior and posterior domains at the cell cortex. From these domains, the PAR proteins direct the segregation of somatic and germline factors into opposing regions of the cytoplasm such that, upon cell division, they are preferentially inherited by the somatic blastomere or the germline blastomere, respectively. The segregation of these factors is controlled, at least in part, by a series of reaction-diffusion mechanisms that are asymmetrically deployed along the anterior/posterior axis. The characterization of these mechanisms has important implications for our understanding of how cells are polarized and how spatial organization is generated in the cytoplasm. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Structural mechanisms of RNA recognition: sequence-specific and non-specific RNA-binding proteins and the Cas9-RNA-DNA complex

RNA-binding proteins play crucial roles in RNA processing and function as regulators of gene expression. Recent studies have defined the structural basis for RNA recognition by diverse RNA-binding motifs. While many RNA-binding proteins recognize RNA sequence non-specifically by associating with 5' or 3' RNA ends, sequence-specific recognition by RNA-binding proteins is typically achieved by combining multiple modular domains to form complex binding surfaces. In this review, we present examples of structures from different classes of RNA-binding proteins, identify the mechanisms utilized by them to target specific RNAs, and describe structural principles of how protein-protein interactions affect RNA recognition specificity. We also highlight the structural mechanism of sequence-dependent and -independent interactions in the Cas9-RNA-DNA complex.

Evolutionary conservation and expression of human RNA-binding proteins and their role in human genetic disease

RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) are effectors and regulators of posttranscriptional gene regulation (PTGR). RBPs regulate stability, maturation, and turnover of all RNAs, often binding thousands of targets at many sites. The importance of RBPs is underscored by their dysregulation or mutations causing a variety of developmental and neurological diseases. This chapter globally discusses human RBPs and provides a brief introduction to their identification and RNA targets. We review RBPs based on common structural RNA-binding domains, study their evolutionary conservation and expression, and summarize disease associations of different RBP classes.

RNA in development: how ribonucleoprotein granules regulate the life cycles of pathogenic protozoa

Ribonucleoprotein (RNP) granules are important posttranscriptional regulators of messenger RNA (mRNA) fate. Several types of RNP granules specifically regulate gene expression during development of multicellular organisms and are commonly referred to as germ granules. The function of germ granules is not entirely understood and probably diverse, but it is generally agreed that one main function is posttranscriptional regulation of gene expression during early development, when transcription is silent. One example is the translational repression of maternally derived mRNAs in oocytes. Here, I hope to show that the need for regulation of gene expression by RNP granules is not restricted to animal development, but plays an equally important role during the development of pathogenic protozoa. Apicomplexa and Trypanosomatidae have complex life cycles with frequent host changes. The need to quickly adapt gene expression to a new environment as well as the ability to suppress translation to survive latencies is critical for successful completion of life cycles. Posttranscriptional gene regulation is not necessarily simpler in protozoa. Apicomplexa surprise with the presence of micro RNA (miRNAs) and upstream open reading frames (µORFs). Trypanosomes have an unusually large repertoire of different RNP granule types. A better understanding of RNP granules in protozoa may help to gain insight into the evolutionary origin of RNP granules: Trypanosomes for example have two types of granules with interesting similarities to animal germ granules.

RNA recognition by the Caenorhabditis elegans oocyte maturation determinant OMA-1

Maternally supplied mRNAs encode proteins that pattern early embryos in many species. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a suite of RNA-binding proteins regulates expression of maternal mRNAs during oogenesis, the oocyte to embryo transition, and early embryogenesis. To understand how these RNA-binding proteins contribute to development, it is necessary to determine how they select specific mRNA targets for regulation. OMA-1 and OMA-2 are redundant proteins required for oocyte maturation--an essential part of meiosis that prepares oocytes for fertilization. Both proteins have CCCH type tandem zinc finger RNA-binding domains. Here, we define the RNA binding specificity of OMA-1 and demonstrate that OMA-1/2 are required to repress the expression of a glp-1 3'-UTR reporter in developing oocytes. OMA-1 binds with high affinity to a conserved region of the glp-1 3'-UTR previously shown to interact with POS-1 and GLD-1, RNA-binding proteins required for glp-1 reporter repression in the posterior of fertilized embryos. Our results reveal that OMA-1 is a sequence-specific RNA-binding protein required to repress expression of maternal transcripts during oogenesis and suggest that interplay between OMA-1 and other factors for overlapping binding sites helps to coordinate the transition from oocyte to embryo.

Tristetraprolin (TTP): interactions with mRNA and proteins, and current thoughts on mechanisms of action

Changes in mRNA stability and translation are critical control points in the regulation of gene expression, particularly genes encoding growth factors, inflammatory mediators, and proto-oncogenes. Adenosine and uridine (AU)-rich elements (ARE), often located in the 3' untranslated regions (3'UTR) of mRNAs, are known to target transcripts for rapid decay. They are also involved in the regulation of mRNA stability and translation in response to extracellular cues. This review focuses on one of the best characterized ARE binding proteins, tristetraprolin (TTP), the founding member of a small family of CCCH tandem zinc finger proteins. In this survey, we have reviewed the current status of TTP interactions with mRNA and proteins, and discussed current thinking about TTP's mechanism of action to promote mRNA decay. We also review the proposed regulation of TTP's functions by phosphorylation. Finally, we have discussed emerging evidence for TTP operating as a translational regulator. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: RNA Decay mechanisms.

A protein.protein interaction platform involved in recruitment of GLD-3 to the FBF.fem-3 mRNA complex

The Pumilio and FBF (PUF) family of RNA-binding proteins interacts with protein partners to post-transcriptionally regulate mRNAs in eukaryotes. The interaction between PUF family member fem-3 binding factor (FBF) and germline development defective-3 (GLD-3) protein promotes spermatogenesis in Caenorhabditis elegans by increasing expression of the fem-3 mRNA. Defined here in these studies is the molecular basis for this critical interaction. A 10-amino-acid region within GLD-3 is required for FBF binding, while a 7-amino-acid loop in FBF between PUF repeats 7 and 8 is necessary for GLD-3 binding. These short sequences are conserved, as other FBF-binding proteins bear sequences similar to those in GLD-3 and other C. elegans PUF proteins contain sequences similar to those in FBF. The FBF-binding region of GLD-3 forms a ternary complex with FBF on the point mutation element (PME) in the fem-3 3' untranslated region, and formation of this GLD-3⋅FBF complex does not impact the RNA-binding activity of FBF. These data raise the possibility of alternative models involving the formation of a GLD-3⋅FBF⋅RNA complex in the regulation of germline mRNAs.

Biochemical characterization of the Caenorhabditis elegans FBF.CPB-1 translational regulation complex identifies conserved protein interaction hotspots

Caenorhabditis elegans CPB-1 (cytoplasmic polyadenylation element binding protein homolog-1) and FBF (fem-3 mRNA binding factor) are evolutionary conserved regulators of mRNA translation that belong to the CPEB (cytoplasmic polyadenylation element binding) and PUF (Pumilio and FBF) protein families, respectively. In hermaphrodite worms, CPB-1 and FBF control key steps during germline development, including stem cell maintenance and sex determination. While CPB-1 and FBF are known to interact, the molecular basis and function of the CPB-1⋅FBF complex are not known. The surface of CPB-1 that interacts with FBF was localized using in vivo and in vitro methods to a 10-residue region at the N-terminus of the protein and these residues are present in the FBF-binding protein GLD-3 (germline development defective-3). PUF proteins are characterized by the presence of eight α-helical repeats (PUF repeats) arranged side by side in an elongated structure. Critical residues for CPB-1 binding are found in the extended loop that connects PUF repeats 7 and 8. The same FBF residues also mediate binding to GLD-3, indicating a conserved binding mode between different protein partners. CPB-1 binding was competitive with GLD-3, suggestive of mutual exclusivity in vivo. RNA binding measurements demonstrated that CPB-1 alters the affinity of FBF for specific RNA sequences, implying a functional model where the coregulatory protein CPB-1 modulates FBF target selection.

Predicting RNA-protein interactions using only sequence information

Background

RNA-protein interactions (RPIs) play important roles in a wide variety of cellular processes, ranging from transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression to host defense against pathogens. High throughput experiments to identify RNA-protein interactions are beginning to provide valuable information about the complexity of RNA-protein interaction networks, but are expensive and time consuming. Hence, there is a need for reliable computational methods for predicting RNA-protein interactions.

Results

We propose RPISeq, a family of classifiers for predicting RNA-protein interactions using only sequence information. Given the sequences of an RNA and a protein as input, RPIseq predicts whether or not the RNA-protein pair interact. The RNA sequence is encoded as a normalized vector of its ribonucleotide 4-mer composition, and the protein sequence is encoded as a normalized vector of its 3-mer composition, based on a 7-letter reduced alphabet representation. Two variants of RPISeq are presented: RPISeq-SVM, which uses a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier and RPISeq-RF, which uses a Random Forest classifier. On two non-redundant benchmark datasets extracted from the Protein-RNA Interface Database (PRIDB), RPISeq achieved an AUC (Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve) of 0.96 and 0.92. On a third dataset containing only mRNA-protein interactions, the performance of RPISeq was competitive with that of a published method that requires information regarding many different features (e.g., mRNA half-life, GO annotations) of the putative RNA and protein partners. In addition, RPISeq classifiers trained using the PRIDB data correctly predicted the majority (57-99%) of non-coding RNA-protein interactions in NPInter-derived networks from E. coli, S. cerevisiae, D. melanogaster, M. musculus, and H. sapiens.

Conclusions

Our experiments with RPISeq demonstrate that RNA-protein interactions can be reliably predicted using only sequence-derived information. RPISeq offers an inexpensive method for computational construction of RNA-protein interaction networks, and should provide useful insights into the function of non-coding RNAs. RPISeq is freely available as a web-based server at http://pridb.gdcb.iastate.edu/RPISeq/.

Nucleic acid recognition by tandem helical repeats

Protein domains constructed from tandem α-helical repeats have until recently been primarily associated with protein scaffolds or RNA recognition. Recent crystal structures of human mitochondrial termination factor MTERF1 and Bacillus cereus alkylpurine DNA glycosylase AlkD bound to DNA revealed two new superhelical tandem repeat architectures capable of wrapping around the double helix in unique ways. Unlike DNA sequence recognition motifs that rely mainly on major groove read-out, MTERF and ALK motifs locate target sequences and aberrant nucleotides within DNA by resculpting the double-helix through extensive backbone contacts. Comparisons between MTERF and ALK repeats, together with recent advances in ssRNA recognition by Pumilio/FBF (PUF) domains, provide new insights into the fundamental principles of protein-nucleic acid recognition.

Cysteine and histidine shuffling: mixing and matching cysteine and histidine residues in zinc finger proteins to afford different folds and function

Zinc finger proteins utilize zinc for structural purposes: zinc binds to a combination of cysteine and histidine ligands in a tetrahedral coordination geometry facilitating protein folding and function. While much is known about the classical zinc finger proteins, which utilize a Cys(2)His(2) ligand set to coordinate zinc and fold into an anti-parallel beta sheet/alpha helical fold, there are thirteen other families of 'non-classical' zinc finger proteins for which relationships between metal coordination and protein structure/function are less defined. This 'Perspective' article focuses on two classes of these non-classical zinc finger proteins: Cys(3)His type zinc finger proteins and Cys(2)His(2)Cys type zinc finger proteins. These proteins bind zinc in a tetrahedral geometry, like the classical zinc finger proteins, yet they adopt completely different folds and target different oligonucleotides. Our current understanding of the relationships between ligand set, metal ion, fold and function for these non-classical zinc fingers is discussed.

Pumilio RNA recognition: the consequence of promiscuity

In this issue, Lu and Hall (2011) reveal the structural basis for degenerate RNA recognition by human Pumilio proteins. The structures suggest an appealing model where nucleotides that do not contribute to binding affinity define Pumilio regulatory activity by adopting distinctive conformations with differential ability to recruit regulatory cofactors.