Emanuel Wyler

Analysis of intron sequences reveals hallmarks of circular RNA biogenesis in animals

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a large class of animal RNAs. To investigate possible circRNA functions, it is important to understand circRNA biogenesis. Besides human ALU repeats, sequence features that promote exon circularization are largely unknown. We experimentally identified circRNAs in C. elegans. Reverse complementary sequences between introns bracketing circRNAs were significantly enriched in comparison to linear controls. By scoring the presence of reverse complementary sequences in human introns, we predicted and experimentally validated circRNAs. We show that introns bracketing circRNAs are highly enriched in RNA editing or hyperediting events. Knockdown of the double-strand RNA-editing enzyme ADAR1 significantly and specifically upregulated circRNA expression. Together, our data support a model of animal circRNA biogenesis in which competing RNA-RNA interactions of introns form larger structures that promote circularization of embedded exons, whereas ADAR1 antagonizes circRNA expression by melting stems within these interactions.

Translation of CircRNAs

Summary Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are abundant and evolutionarily conserved RNAs of largely unknown function. Here, we show that a subset of circRNAs is translated in vivo. By performing ribosome footprinting from fly heads, we demonstrate that a group of circRNAs is associated with translating ribosomes. Many of these ribo-circRNAs use the start codon of the hosting mRNA, are bound by membrane-associated ribosomes, and have evolutionarily conserved termination codons. In addition, we found that a circRNA generated from the muscleblind locus encodes a protein, which we detected in fly head extracts by mass spectrometry. Next, by performing in vivo and in vitro translation assays, we show that UTRs of ribo-circRNAs (cUTRs) allow cap-independent translation. Moreover, we found that starvation and FOXO likely regulate the translation of a circMbl isoform. Altogether, our study provides strong evidence for translation of circRNAs, revealing the existence of an unexplored layer of gene activity.

Detecting actively translated open reading frames in ribosome profiling data

RNA-sequencing protocols can quantify gene expression regulation from transcription to protein synthesis. Ribosome profiling (Ribo-seq) maps the positions of translating ribosomes over the entire transcriptome. We have developed RiboTaper (available at https://ohlerlab.mdc-berlin.de/software/), a rigorous statistical approach that identifies translated regions on the basis of the characteristic three-nucleotide periodicity of Ribo-seq data. We used RiboTaper with deep Ribo-seq data from HEK293 cells to derive an extensive map of translation that covered open reading frame (ORF) annotations for more than 11,000 protein-coding genes. We also found distinct ribosomal signatures for several hundred upstream ORFs and ORFs in annotated noncoding genes (ncORFs). Mass spectrometry data confirmed that RiboTaper achieved excellent coverage of the cellular proteome. Although dozens of novel peptide products were validated in this manner, few of the currently annotated long noncoding RNAs appeared to encode stable polypeptides. RiboTaper is a powerful method for comprehensive de novo identification of actively used ORFs from Ribo-seq data.

Transcriptome-wide analysis of protein–RNA interactions using high-throughput sequencing

Protein-RNA interactions are emerging as an important functional element in the regulation of gene expression. Cross-linking of proteins to RNA by UV irradiation followed by immunoprecipitation (CLIP) has provided a crucial tool for research in this field. Initially, the bottleneck of the method was the relatively low number of identified RNA binding sites. It was only the arrival of next-generation sequencing that allowed a comprehensive and unbiased description of the cross-linked protein-RNA fragments. Here, we summarize recent progress in the study of protein-RNA interactions, as well as some of the important findings obtained using different CLIP approaches in cultured cells and organisms. These efforts allowed the identification of functional RNA-binding sites for a wide range of RNA-interacting proteins. Experimental and bioinformatic progress will further advance this dynamic area of research. The combination of high-resolution protein-RNA interaction maps with transcriptome-wide data describing the stability, modifications and structures of RNAs, in addition to protein expression profiling, will provide deeper insight into post-transcriptional and translational regulatory events and mechanisms.

RC3H1 post-transcriptionally regulates A20 mRNA and modulates the activity of the IKK/NF-κB pathway.

The RNA-binding protein RC3H1 (also known as ROQUIN) promotes TNFα mRNA decay via a 3′UTR constitutive decay element (CDE). Here we applied PAR-CLIP to human RC3H1 to identify ∼3,800 mRNA targets with >16,000 binding sites. A large number of sites are distinct from the consensus CDE and revealed a structure-sequence motif with U-rich sequences embedded in hairpins. RC3H1 binds preferentially short-lived and DNA damage-induced mRNAs, indicating a role of this RNA-binding protein in the post-transcriptional regulation of the DNA damage response. Intriguingly, RC3H1 affects expression of the NF-κB pathway regulators such as IκBα and A20. RC3H1 uses ROQ and Zn-finger domains to contact a binding site in the A20 3′UTR, demonstrating a not yet recognized mode of RC3H1 binding. Knockdown of RC3H1 resulted in increased A20 protein expression, thereby interfering with IκB kinase and NF-κB activities, demonstrating that RC3H1 can modulate the activity of the IKK/NF-κB pathway.

Quantitative Interaction Proteomics of Neurodegenerative Disease Proteins

Several proteins have been linked to neurodegenerative disorders (NDDs), but their molecular function is not completely understood. Here, we used quantitative interaction proteomics to identify binding partners of Amyloid beta precursor protein (APP) and Presenilin-1 (PSEN1) for Alzheimers disease (AD), Huntingtin (HTT) for Huntingtons disease, Parkin (PARK2) for Parkinsons disease, and Ataxin-1 (ATXN1) for spinocerebellar ataxia type 1. Our network reveals common signatures of protein degradation and misfolding and recapitulates known biology. Toxicity modifier screens and comparison to genome-wide association studies show that interaction partners are significantly linked to disease phenotypes in vivo. Direct comparison of wild-type proteins and disease-associated variants identified binders involved in pathogenesis, highlighting the value of differential interactome mapping. Finally, we show that the mitochondrial protein LRPPRC interacts preferentially with an early-onset AD variant of APP. This interaction appears to induce mitochondrial dysfunction, which is an early phenotype of AD.

JACUSA: site-specific identification of RNA editing events from replicate sequencing data

BackgroundRNA editing is a co-transcriptional modification that increases the molecular diversity, alters secondary structure and protein coding sequences by changing the sequence of transcripts. The most common RNA editing modification is the single base substitution (A→I) that is catalyzed by the members of the Adenosine deaminases that act on RNA (ADAR) family. Typically, editing sites are identified as RNA-DNA-differences (RDDs) in a comparison of genome and transcriptome data from next-generation sequencing experiments. However, a method for robust detection of site-specific editing events from replicate RNA-seq data has not been published so far. Even more surprising, condition-specific editing events, which would show up as differences in RNA-RNA comparisons (RRDs) and depend on particular cellular states, are rarely discussed in the literature.ResultsWe present JACUSA, a versatile one-stop solution to detect single nucleotide variant positions from comparing RNA-DNA and/or RNA-RNA sequencing samples. The performance of JACUSA has been carefully evaluated and compared to other variant callers in an in silico benchmark. JACUSA outperforms other algorithms in terms of the F measure, which combines precision and recall, in all benchmark scenarios. This performance margin is highest for the RNA-RNA comparison scenario.We further validated JACUSA’s performance by testing its ability to detect A→I events using sequencing data from a human cell culture experiment and publicly available RNA-seq data from Drosophila melanogaster heads. To this end, we performed whole genome and RNA sequencing of HEK-293 cells on samples with lowered activity of candidate RNA editing enzymes. JACUSA has a higher recall and comparable precision for detecting true editing sites in RDD comparisons of HEK-293 data. Intriguingly, JACUSA captures most A→I events from RRD comparisons of RNA sequencing data derived from Drosophila and HEK-293 data sets.ConclusionOur software JACUSA detects single nucleotide variants by comparing data from next-generation sequencing experiments (RNA-DNA or RNA-RNA). In practice, JACUSA shows higher recall and comparable precision in detecting A→I sites from RNA-DNA comparisons, while showing higher precision and recall in RNA-RNA comparisons.

An immediate–late gene expression module decodes ERK signal duration

The RAF‐MEK‐ERK signalling pathway controls fundamental, often opposing cellular processes such as proliferation and apoptosis. Signal duration has been identified to play a decisive role in these cell fate decisions. However, it remains unclear how the different early and late responding gene expression modules can discriminate short and long signals. We obtained both protein phosphorylation and gene expression time course data from HEK293 cells carrying an inducible construct of the proto‐oncogene RAF. By mathematical modelling, we identified a new gene expression module of immediate–late genes (ILGs) distinct in gene expression dynamics and function. We find that mRNA longevity enables these ILGs to respond late and thus translate ERK signal duration into response amplitude. Despite their late response, their GC‐rich promoter structure suggested and metabolic labelling with 4SU confirmed that transcription of ILGs is induced immediately. A comparative analysis shows that the principle of duration decoding is conserved in PC12 cells and MCF7 cells, two paradigm cell systems for ERK signal duration. Altogether, our findings suggest that ILGs function as a gene expression module to decode ERK signal duration.

Widespread activation of antisense transcription of the host genome during herpes simplex virus 1 infection

BackgroundHerpesviruses can infect a wide range of animal species. Herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) is one of the eight herpesviruses that can infect humans and is prevalent worldwide. Herpesviruses have evolved multiple ways to adapt the infected cells to their needs, but knowledge about these transcriptional and post-transcriptional modifications is sparse.ResultsHere, we show that HSV-1 induces the expression of about 1000 antisense transcripts from the human host cell genome. A subset of these is also activated by the closely related varicella zoster virus. Antisense transcripts originate either at gene promoters or within the gene body, and they show different susceptibility to the inhibition of early and immediate early viral gene expression. Overexpression of the major viral transcription factor ICP4 is sufficient to turn on a subset of antisense transcripts. Histone marks around transcription start sites of HSV-1-induced and constitutively transcribed antisense transcripts are highly similar, indicating that the genetic loci are already poised to transcribe these novel RNAs. Furthermore, an antisense transcript overlapping with the BBC3 gene (also known as PUMA) transcriptionally silences this potent inducer of apoptosis in cis.ConclusionsWe show for the first time that a virus induces widespread antisense transcription of the host cell genome. We provide evidence that HSV-1 uses this to downregulate a strong inducer of apoptosis. Our findings open new perspectives on global and specific alterations of host cell transcription by viruses.

Rattus norvegicus BN/SHR liver and heart left ventricle ribosomal RNA depleted directional RNA sequencing

ObjectiveThe spontaneously hypertensive rat strain is a frequently used disease model. In a previous study, we measured translational efficiency from this strain and BN-Lx animals. Here, we describe long RNA sequencing reads from ribosomal RNA depleted samples from the same animals. This data can be used to investigate splicing-related events.ResultsRNA was extracted from rat liver and heart left ventricle from BN-Lx and SHR/Ola rats in biological replicates. Ribosomal RNA was removed and the samples subjected to directional high-throughput RNA-sequencing. Read and alignment statistics indicate high quality of the data. The raw sequencing reads are freely available on the NCBI short read archive and can be used for further research on tissue and strain differences, or analysed together with other published high-throughput data from the same animals.