The exon junction complex: structural insights into a faithful companion of mammalian mRNPs

CASC3 Biomolecular Condensates Restrict Turnip Crinkle Virus by Limiting Host Factor Availability

The exon-junction complex (EJC) plays a role in post-transcriptional gene regulation and exerts antiviral activity towards several positive-strand RNA viruses. However, the spectrum of RNA viruses that are targeted by the EJC or the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. EJC components from Arabidopsis thaliana were screened for antiviral activity towards Turnip crinkle virus (TCV, Tombusviridae). Overexpression of the accessory EJC component CASC3 inhibited TCV accumulation > 10-fold in Nicotiana benthamiana while knock-down of endogenous CASC3 resulted in a > 4-fold increase in TCV accumulation. CASC3 forms cytoplasmic condensates and deletion of the conserved SELOR domain reduced condensate size 7-fold and significantly decreased antiviral activity towards TCV. Mass spectrometry of CASC3 complexes did not identify endogenous stress granule or P-body markers and CASC3 failed to co-localize with an aggresome-specific dye suggesting that CASC3 condensates are distinct from well-established membraneless compartments. Mass spectrometry and bimolecular fluorescence complementation assays revealed that CASC3 sequesters Heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70-1) and Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), two host factors with roles in tombusvirus replication. Overexpression of Hsp70-1 or GAPDH reduced the antiviral activity of CASC3 2.1-fold and 2.8-fold, respectively, and suggests that CASC3 inhibits TCV by limiting host factor availability. Unrelated Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) also depends on Hsp70-1 and CASC3 overexpression restricted TMV accumulation 4-fold and demonstrates that CASC3 antiviral activity is not TCV-specific. Like CASC3, Auxin response factor 19 (ARF19) forms poorly dynamic condensates but ARF19 overexpression failed to inhibit TCV accumulation and suggests that CASC3 has antiviral activities that are not ubiquitous among cytoplasmic condensates.

Exon junction complex-associated multi-adapter RNPS1 nucleates splicing regulatory complexes to maintain transcriptome surveillance

The exon junction complex (EJC) is an RNA-binding multi-protein complex with critical functions in post-transcriptional gene regulation. It is deposited on the mRNA during splicing and regulates diverse processes including pre-mRNA splicing and nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) via various interacting proteins. The peripheral EJC-binding protein RNPS1 was reported to serve two insufficiently characterized functions: suppressing mis-splicing of cryptic splice sites and activating NMD in the cytoplasm. The analysis of transcriptome-wide effects of EJC and RNPS1 knockdowns in different human cell lines supports the conclusion that RNPS1 can moderately influence NMD activity, but is not a globally essential NMD factor. However, numerous aberrant splicing events strongly suggest that the main function of RNPS1 is splicing regulation. Rescue analyses revealed that the RRM and C-terminal domain of RNPS1 both contribute partially to regulate RNPS1-dependent splicing events. We defined the RNPS1 core interactome using complementary immunoprecipitations and proximity labeling, which identified interactions with splicing-regulatory factors that are dependent on the C-terminus or the RRM domain of RNPS1. Thus, RNPS1 emerges as a multifunctional splicing regulator that promotes correct and efficient splicing of different vulnerable splicing events via the formation of diverse splicing-promoting complexes.

The Physiological Roles of the Exon Junction Complex in Development and Diseases

The exon junction complex (EJC) becomes an increasingly important regulator of early gene expression in the central nervous system (CNS) and other tissues. The EJC is comprised of three core proteins: RNA-binding motif 8A (RBM8A), Mago homolog (MAGOH), eukaryotic initiation factor 4A3 (EIF4A3), and a peripheral EJC factor, metastatic lymph node 51 (MLN51), together with various auxiliary factors. The EJC is assembled specifically at exon-exon junctions on mRNAs, hence the name of the complex. The EJC regulates multiple levels of gene expression, from splicing to translation and mRNA degradation. The functional roles of the EJC have been established as crucial to the normal progress of embryonic and neurological development, with wide ranging implications on molecular, cellular, and organism level function. Dysfunction of the EJC has been implicated in multiple developmental and neurological diseases. In this review, we discuss recent progress on the EJC’s physiological roles.

Nuclear mRNA maturation and mRNA export control: from trypanosomes to opisthokonts

The passage of mRNAs through the nuclear pores into the cytoplasm is essential in all eukaryotes. For regulation, mRNA export is tightly connected to the full machinery of nuclear mRNA processing, starting at transcription. Export competence of pre-mRNAs gradually increases by both transient and permanent interactions with multiple RNA processing and export factors. mRNA export is best understood in opisthokonts, with limited knowledge in plants and protozoa. Here, I review and compare nuclear mRNA processing and export between opisthokonts and Trypanosoma brucei. The parasite has many unusual features in nuclear mRNA processing, such as polycistronic transcription and trans-splicing. It lacks several nuclear complexes and nuclear-pore-associated proteins that in opisthokonts play major roles in mRNA export. As a consequence, trypanosome mRNA export control is not tight and export can even start co-transcriptionally. Whether trypanosomes regulate mRNA export at all, or whether leakage of immature mRNA to the cytoplasm is kept to a low level by a fast kinetics of mRNA processing remains to be investigated. mRNA export had to be present in the last common ancestor of eukaryotes. Trypanosomes are evolutionary very distant from opisthokonts and a comparison helps understanding the evolution of mRNA export.

CASC3 promotes transcriptome-wide activation of nonsense-mediated decay by the exon junction complex

The exon junction complex (EJC) is an essential constituent and regulator of spliced messenger ribonucleoprotein particles (mRNPs) in metazoans. As a core component of the EJC, CASC3 was described to be pivotal for EJC-dependent nuclear and cytoplasmic processes. However, recent evidence suggests that CASC3 functions differently from other EJC core proteins. Here, we have established human CASC3 knockout cell lines to elucidate the cellular role of CASC3. In the knockout cells, overall EJC composition and EJC-dependent splicing are unchanged. A transcriptome-wide analysis reveals that hundreds of mRNA isoforms targeted by nonsense-mediated decay (NMD) are upregulated. Mechanistically, recruiting CASC3 to reporter mRNAs by direct tethering or via binding to the EJC stimulates mRNA decay and endonucleolytic cleavage at the termination codon. Building on existing EJC-NMD models, we propose that CASC3 equips the EJC with the persisting ability to communicate with the NMD machinery in the cytoplasm. Collectively, our results characterize CASC3 as a peripheral EJC protein that tailors the transcriptome by promoting the degradation of EJC-dependent NMD substrates.

A Day in the Life of the Exon Junction Complex

The exon junction complex (EJC) is an abundant messenger ribonucleoprotein (mRNP) component that is assembled during splicing and binds to mRNAs upstream of exon-exon junctions. EJCs accompany the mRNA during its entire life in the nucleus and the cytoplasm and communicate the information about the splicing process and the position of introns. Specifically, the EJC’s core components and its associated proteins regulate different steps of gene expression, including pre-mRNA splicing, mRNA export, translation, and nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD). This review summarizes the most important functions and main protagonists in the life of the EJC. It also provides an overview of the latest findings on the assembly, composition and molecular activities of the EJC and presents them in the chronological order, in which they play a role in the EJC’s life cycle.

Spliceosomopathies and neurocristopathies: Two sides of the same coin?

Mutations in core components of the spliceosome are responsible for a group of syndromes collectively known as spliceosomopathies. Patients exhibit microcephaly, micrognathia, malar hypoplasia, external ear anomalies, eye anomalies, psychomotor delay, intellectual disability, limb, and heart defects. Craniofacial malformations in these patients are predominantly found in neural crest cells-derived structures of the face and head. Mutations in eight genes SNRPB, RNU4ATAC, SF3B4, PUF60, EFTUD2, TXNL4, EIF4A3, and CWC27 are associated with craniofacial spliceosomopathies. In this review, we provide a brief description of the normal development of the head and the face and an overview of mutations identified in genes associated with craniofacial spliceosomopathies. We also describe a model to explain how and when these mutations are most likely to impact neural crest cells. We speculate that mutations in a subset of core splicing factors lead to disrupted splicing in neural crest cells because these cells have increased sensitivity to inefficient splicing. Hence, disruption in splicing likely activates a cellular stress response that includes increased skipping of regulatory exons in genes such as MDM2 and MDM4, key regulators of P53. This would result in P53-associated death of neural crest cells and consequently craniofacial malformations associated with spliceosomopathies.

mRNA Metabolism in Cardiac Development and Disease: Life After Transcription

The central dogma of molecular biology illustrates the importance of mRNAs as critical mediators between genetic information encoded at the DNA level and proteomes/metabolomes that determine the diverse functional outcome at the cellular and organ levels. Although the total number of protein-producing (coding) genes in the mammalian genome is ~20,000, it is evident that the intricate processes of cardiac development and the highly regulated physiological regulation in the normal heart, as well as the complex manifestation of pathological remodeling in a diseased heart, would require a much higher degree of complexity at the transcriptome level and beyond. Indeed, in addition to an extensive regulatory scheme implemented at the level of transcription, the complexity of transcript processing following transcription is dramatically increased. RNA processing includes post-transcriptional modification, alternative splicing, editing and transportation, ribosomal loading, and degradation. While transcriptional control of cardiac genes has been a major focus of investigation in recent decades, a great deal of progress has recently been made in our understanding of how post-transcriptional regulation of mRNA contributes to transcriptome complexity. In this review, we highlight some of the key molecular processes and major players in RNA maturation and post-transcriptional regulation. In addition, we provide an update to the recent progress made in the discovery of RNA processing regulators implicated in cardiac development and disease. While post-transcriptional modulation is a complex and challenging problem to study, recent technological advancements are paving the way for a new era of exciting discoveries and potential clinical translation in the context of cardiac biology and heart disease.

It's Not the Destination, It's the Journey: Heterogeneity in mRNA Export Mechanisms

The process of creating a translation-competent mRNA is highly complex and involves numerous steps including transcription, splicing, addition of modifications, and, finally, export to the cytoplasm. Historically, much of the research on regulation of gene expression at the level of the mRNA has been focused on either the regulation of mRNA synthesis (transcription and splicing) or metabolism (translation and degradation). However, in recent years, the advent of new experimental techniques has revealed the export of mRNA to be a major node in the regulation of gene expression, and numerous large-scale and specific mRNA export pathways have been defined. In this chapter, we will begin by outlining the mechanism by which most mRNAs are homeostatically exported ("bulk mRNA export"), involving the recruitment of the NXF1/TAP export receptor by the Aly/REF and THOC5 components of the TREX complex. We will then examine various mechanisms by which this pathway may be controlled, modified, or bypassed in order to promote the export of subset(s) of cellular mRNAs, which include the use of metazoan-specific orthologs of bulk mRNA export factors, specific cis RNA motifs which recruit mRNA export machinery via specific trans-acting-binding factors, posttranscriptional mRNA modifications that act as "inducible" export cis elements, the use of the atypical mRNA export receptor, CRM1, and the manipulation or bypass of the nuclear pore itself. Finally, we will discuss major outstanding questions in the field of mRNA export heterogeneity and outline how cutting-edge experimental techniques are providing new insights into and tools for investigating the intriguing field of mRNA export heterogeneity.

Introns: Good Day Junk Is Bad Day Treasure

Introns are ubiquitous in eukaryotic transcripts. They are often viewed as junk RNA but the huge energetic burden of transcribing, removing, and degrading them suggests a significant evolutionary advantage. Ostensibly, an intron functions within the host pre-mRNA to regulate its splicing, transport, and degradation. However, recent studies have revealed an entirely new class of trans-acting functions where the presence of intronic RNA in the cell impacts the expression of other genes in trans. Here, we review possible new mechanisms of intron functions, with a focus on the role of yeast introns in regulating the cell growth response to starvation.

Regulation of gene expression in trypanosomatids: living with polycistronic transcription

In trypanosomes, RNA polymerase II transcription is polycistronic and individual mRNAs are excised by trans-splicing and polyadenylation. The lack of individual gene transcription control is compensated by control of mRNA processing, translation and degradation. Although the basic mechanisms of mRNA decay and translation are evolutionarily conserved, there are also unique aspects, such as the existence of six cap-binding translation initiation factor homologues, a novel decapping enzyme and an mRNA stabilizing complex that is recruited by RNA-binding proteins. High-throughput analyses have identified nearly a hundred regulatory mRNA-binding proteins, making trypanosomes valuable as a model system to investigate post-transcriptional regulation.

Promoter-proximal pausing mediated by the exon junction complex regulates splicing

Promoter-proximal pausing of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) is a widespread transcriptional regulatory step across metazoans. Here we find that the nuclear exon junction complex (pre-EJC) is a critical and conserved regulator of this process. Depletion of pre-EJC subunits leads to a global decrease in Pol II pausing and to premature entry into elongation. This effect occurs, at least in part, via non-canonical recruitment of pre-EJC components at promoters. Failure to recruit the pre-EJC at promoters results in increased binding of the positive transcription elongation complex (P-TEFb) and in enhanced Pol II release. Notably, restoring pausing is sufficient to rescue exon skipping and the photoreceptor differentiation defect associated with depletion of pre-EJC components in vivo. We propose that the pre-EJC serves as an early transcriptional checkpoint to prevent premature entry into elongation, ensuring proper recruitment of RNA processing components that are necessary for exon definition.