Search

Transcription by RNA polymerase II underlies fundamental cellular processes in eukaryotic cells, representing a major regulatory hub in gene expression. Transcription is tightly coupled with co-transcriptional RNA processing to allow the synthesis of functional RNAs. A misregulation can cause human disease. The recent advent of functional multiomics approaches now provides new general insights into the molecular mechanisms that control and link transcription with RNA maturation in cells.

Exome sequencing has introduced a paradigm shift for the identification of germline variations responsible for Mendelian diseases. However, non-coding regions, which make up 98% of the genome, cannot be captured. The lack of functional annotation for intronic and intergenic variants makes RNA-seq a powerful companion diagnostic. Here, we illustrate this point by identifying six patients with a recessive Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) and neonatal progeria syndrome. By integrating homozygosity mapping and RNA-seq, we delineated a deep intronic TAPT1 mutation (c.1237-52G>A) that segregated with the disease. Using patients’ fibroblasts, we document that TAPT1’s nascent transcription was not affected, indicating instead that this variant leads to an alteration of pre-mRNA processing. Predicted to serve as an alternative splicing branchpoint, this mutation causes TAPT1 exon 12 skipping, creating a protein-null allele. Additionally, our study reveals dysregulation of pathways involved in collagen and extracellular matrix biology in disease-relevant cells. Overall, our work highlights the power of transcriptomic approaches in deciphering the repercussion of non-coding variants as well as in illuminating the molecular mechanisms and underlying pathways of human diseases.

Transcription elongation has emerged as a regulatory hub in gene expression of metazoans. A major control point occurs during early elongation before RNA polymerase II (Pol II) is released into productive elongation. Prior research has linked BRD4 with transcription elongation. Here, we use rapid BET protein and BRD4-selective degradation along with quantitative genome-wide approaches to investigate direct functions of BRD4 in Pol II transcription regulation. Notably, as an immediate consequence of acute BRD4 loss, promoter-proximal pause release is impaired, and transcriptionally engaged Pol II past this checkpoint undergoes readthrough transcription. An integrated proteome-wide analysis uncovers elongation and 3'-RNA processing factors as core BRD4 interactors. BRD4 ablation disrupts the recruitment of general 3'-RNA processing factors at the 5'-control region, which correlates with RNA cleavage and termination defects. These studies, performed in human cells, reveal a BRD4-mediated checkpoint and begin to establish a molecular link between 5'-elongation control and 3'-RNA processing.

Intersexuality in female moles Female moles are intersexual and develop masculinizing ovotestes, a distinctive trait among mammals. Real et al. investigated the origin of this trait by sequencing the Iberian mole genome and applying comparative strategies that integrate transcriptomic, epigenetic, and chromatin interaction data. They identified mole-specific genomic rearrangements that alter the three-dimensional regulatory landscape of the androgen-converting gene CYP17A1 and the pro-testicular factor gene FGF9 , both of which show distinct expression patterns in mole gonads. The use of transgenic mice confirms the capability of these factors to increase circulating testosterone levels and to induce gonadal masculinization. This study highlights how integrative approaches can reveal the phenotypic impact of genomic variation. Science , this issue p. 208

In recent years hundreds of novel RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) have been identified leading to the discovery of novel RNA-binding domains (RBDs). Furthermore, unstructured or disordered low-complexity regions of RBPs have been identified to play an important role in interactions with nucleic acids. However, these advances in understanding RBPs are limited mainly to eukaryotic species and we only have limited tools to faithfully predict RNA-binders from bacteria. Here, we describe a support vector machine (SVM)-based method, called TriPepSVM, for the classification of RNA-binding proteins and non-RBPs. TriPepSVM applies string kernels to directly handle protein sequences using tri-peptide frequencies. Testing the method in human and bacteria, we find that several RBP-enriched tripeptides occur more often in structurally disordered regions of RBPs. TriPepSVM outperforms existing applications, which consider classical structural features of RNA-binding or homology, in the task of RBP prediction in both human and bacteria. Finally, we predict 66 novel RBPs inSalmonellaTyphimurium and validate the bacterial proteins ClpX, DnaJ and UbiG to associate with RNA in vivo.