1. Nuclear microRNAs release paused Pol II via the DDX21-CDK9 complex.
- Author
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Ohno SI, Oikawa K, Tsurui T, Harada Y, Ono K, Tateishi M, Mirza A, Takanashi M, Kanekura K, Nagase K, Shimada Y, Kudo Y, Ikeda N, Ochiya T, Wang X, and Kuroda M
- Subjects
- Cell Nucleus metabolism, Gene Expression Regulation, Transcriptional Activation, Cyclin-Dependent Kinase 9 metabolism, DEAD-box RNA Helicases metabolism, MicroRNAs genetics, RNA Polymerase II metabolism
- Abstract
RNA activation (RNAa) is an uncharacterized mechanism of transcriptional activation mediated by small RNAs, such as microRNAs (miRNAs). A critical issue in RNAa research is that it is difficult to distinguish between changes in gene expression caused indirectly by post-transcriptional regulation and direct induction of gene expression by RNAa. Therefore, in this study, we seek to identify a key factor involved in RNAa, using the induction of ZMYND10 by miR-34a as a system to evaluate RNAa. We identify the positive transcription elongation factors CDK9 and DDX21, which form a complex with nuclear AGO and TNRC6A, as important transcriptional activators of RNAa. In addition, we find that inhibition of DDX21 suppresses RNAa by miR-34a and other miRNAs without inhibiting post-transcriptional regulation. Our findings reveal a strong connection between RNAa and release of paused Pol II, facilitating RNAa research by making it possible to separately analyze post-transcriptional regulation and RNAa., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2022
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