Diversity in sequence-dependent control of GRO chemokine mRNA half-life

CXCL1: Gene, Promoter, Regulation of Expression, mRNA Stability, Regulation of Activity in the Intercellular Space

CXCL1 is one of the most important chemokines, part of a group of chemotactic cytokines involved in the development of many inflammatory diseases. It activates CXCR2 and, at high levels, CXCR1. The expression of CXCL1 is elevated in inflammatory reactions and also has important functions in physiology, including the induction of angiogenesis and recruitment of neutrophils. Due to a lack of reviews that precisely describe the regulation of CXCL1 expression and function, in this paper, we present the mechanisms of CXCL1 expression regulation with a special focus on cancer. We concentrate on the regulation of CXCL1 expression through the regulation of CXCL1 transcription and mRNA stability, including the involvement of NF-κB, p53, the effect of miRNAs and cytokines such as IFN-γ, IL-1β, IL-17, TGF-β and TNF-α. We also describe the mechanisms regulating CXCL1 activity in the extracellular space, including proteolytic processing, CXCL1 dimerization and the influence of the ACKR1/DARC receptor on CXCL1 localization. Finally, we explain the role of CXCL1 in cancer and possible therapeutic approaches directed against this chemokine.

The Potential of Omics Technologies in Lyme Disease Biomarker Discovery and Early Detection

Lyme borreliosis (LB) is the most prevalent arthropod-borne infectious disease in North America and many countries of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. It is associated with local and systemic manifestations and has persistent post-treatment health complications in some individuals. Innate and acquired immunity-related inflammation is likely to play a critical role in both host defense against Borrelia burgdorferi and disease severity. Large-scale analytical approaches to quantify gene expression (transcriptomics), proteins (proteomics) and metabolites (metabolomics) in LB have recently emerged with a potential to advance the development of disease biomarkers in early, disseminated and posttreatment disease stages. These technologies may permit defining the disease stage and facilitate its early detection to improve diagnosis. They will also likely allow elucidating the underlying molecular pathways to aid in identifying molecular targets for therapy. This article reviews the findings within the field of omics relevant to LB and its prospective utility in developing an array of biomarkers that can be employed in LB diagnosis and detection particularly at the early disease stages.

Role of KSRP in control of type I interferon and cytokine expression

Cytokines and chemokines are key participants in pathways that drive inflammatory, immune, and other cellular responses to exogenous insults such as infection, trauma, and physiological stress. Persistent and aberrant expression of these factors has been linked to autoimmune, degenerative, and neoplastic diseases. Consequently, cytokine and chemokine expression is tightly governed at each level of gene regulation. Recent studies have demonstrated a role for KH-type splicing regulatory protein (KSRP) in curtailing cytokine and chemokine expression through transcriptional and post-transcriptional mechanisms, including promotion of microRNA maturation. Understanding the role of KSRP in cytokine mRNA metabolism should identify promising targets for the modulation of immune and inflammatory responses.

KSRP controls pleiotropic cellular functions

The single-strand-RNA binding protein KSRP is able to negatively regulate gene expression operating with at least two distinct and integrated postranscriptional mechanisms: (i) by promoting decay of unstable mRNAs and (ii) by favoring maturation from precursors of select microRNAs (miRNAs) including the prototypical tumor suppressor let-7. Studies performed in primary and cultured cells as well as in mice proved that the ability of KSRP to integrate different levels of gene expression is required for proper immune response, lipid metabolism, cell-fate decisions, tissue regeneration, and DNA damage response.

Differential protein occupancy profiling of the mRNA transcriptome

Background

RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) mediate mRNA biogenesis, translation and decay. We recently developed an approach to profile transcriptome-wide RBP contacts on polyadenylated transcripts by next-generation sequencing. A comparison of such profiles from different biological conditions has the power to unravel dynamic changes in protein-contacted cis-regulatory mRNA regions without a priori knowledge of the regulatory protein component.

Results

We compared protein occupancy profiles of polyadenylated transcripts in MCF7 and HEK293 cells. Briefly, we developed a bioinformatics workflow to identify differential crosslinking sites in cDNA reads of 4-thiouridine crosslinked polyadenylated RNA samples. We identified 30,000 differential crosslinking sites between MCF7 and HEK293 cells at an estimated false discovery rate of 10%. 73% of all reported differential protein-RNA contact sites cannot be explained by local changes in exon usage as indicated by complementary RNA-seq data. The majority of differentially crosslinked positions are located in 3′ UTRs, show distinct secondary-structure characteristics and overlap with binding sites of known RBPs, such as ELAVL1. Importantly, mRNA transcripts with the most significant occupancy changes show elongated mRNA half-lives in MCF7 cells.

Conclusions

We present a global comparison of protein occupancy profiles from different cell types, and provide evidence for altered mRNA metabolism as a result of differential protein-RNA contacts. Additionally, we introduce POPPI, a bioinformatics workflow for the analysis of protein occupancy profiling experiments. Our work demonstrates the value of protein occupancy profiling for assessing cis-regulatory RNA sequence space and its dynamics in growth, development and disease.