Pre-mRNA splicing order is defined and maintains splicing fidelity across multi-intronic transcripts [I]
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ABSTRACT: Combinatorially, intron excision within a given nascent transcript could proceed down any of thousands of paths, each of which would expose different dynamic landscapes of cis-elements and contribute to alternative splicing. In this study, we found that post-transcriptional multi-intron splicing order in human cells is largely predetermined, with most genes spliced in one or a few predominant orders. Strikingly, these orders were conserved across cell types and stages of motor neuron differentiation. Introns flanking alternatively spliced exons were frequently excised last, after their neighboring introns. Perturbations to the spliceosomal U2 snRNA altered the preferred splicing order of many genes, and these alterations were associated with the retention of other introns in the same transcript. In one gene, early removal of specific introns was sufficient to induce delayed excision of three proximal introns, and this delay was caused by two distinct cis-regulatory mechanisms. Together, our results demonstrate that multi-intron splicing order in human cells is predetermined, is influenced by a component of the spliceosome and ensures splicing fidelity across long pre-mRNAs.
Project description:Combinatorially, intron excision within a given nascent transcript could proceed down any of thousands of paths, each of which would expose different dynamic landscapes of cis-elements and contribute to alternative splicing. In this study, we found that post-transcriptional multi-intron splicing order in human cells is largely predetermined, with most genes spliced in one or a few predominant orders. Strikingly, these orders were conserved across cell types and stages of motor neuron differentiation. Introns flanking alternatively spliced exons were frequently excised last, after their neighboring introns. Perturbations to the spliceosomal U2 snRNA altered the preferred splicing order of many genes, and these alterations were associated with the retention of other introns in the same transcript. In one gene, early removal of specific introns was sufficient to induce delayed excision of three proximal introns, and this delay was caused by two distinct cis-regulatory mechanisms. Together, our results demonstrate that multi-intron splicing order in human cells is predetermined, is influenced by a component of the spliceosome and ensures splicing fidelity across long pre-mRNAs.
Project description:To determine the prevalence of cotranscriptional splicing in Drosophila, we sequenced nascent RNA transcripts from Drosophila S2 cells as well as from Drosophila heads. 87% of introns assayed manifest more than 50% cotranscriptional splicing. The remaining 13% are cotranscriptionally spliced poorly, or slowly, with ~3% being almost completely retained in nascent pre-mRNA. Although individual introns showed slight but statistically significant differences in splicing efficiency, similar global levels of splicing were seen from both sources. Importantly, introns with low cotranscriptional splicing efficiencies are present in the same primary transcript with efficiently spliced introns, indicating that splicing is intron-specific. The analysis also indicates that cotranscriptional splicing is less efficient for first introns, longer introns and introns annotated as alternative. FinallyFinally, S2 cells expressing the slow RpII215C4 mutant manifest substantially less intron retention than wild-type S2 cells. Examination of Total pA and Nascent RNA from 2 different cell populations and isolated fly heads.
Project description:To determine the prevalence of cotranscriptional splicing in Drosophila, we sequenced nascent RNA transcripts from Drosophila S2 cells as well as from Drosophila heads. 87% of introns assayed manifest more than 50% cotranscriptional splicing. The remaining 13% are cotranscriptionally spliced poorly, or slowly, with ~3% being almost completely retained in nascent pre-mRNA. Although individual introns showed slight but statistically significant differences in splicing efficiency, similar global levels of splicing were seen from both sources. Importantly, introns with low cotranscriptional splicing efficiencies are present in the same primary transcript with efficiently spliced introns, indicating that splicing is intron-specific. The analysis also indicates that cotranscriptional splicing is less efficient for first introns, longer introns and introns annotated as alternative. FinallyFinally, S2 cells expressing the slow RpII215C4 mutant manifest substantially less intron retention than wild-type S2 cells.
Project description:RNA splicing and spliceosome assembly in eukaryotes occur mainly during transcription. However, co-transcriptional splicing has not yet been explored in plants. Here, we showed that in Arabidopsis thaliana, nearly all introns undergo co-transcriptional splicing and this occurs with higher efficiency for introns in protein-coding genes than for noncoding RNAs. Co-transcriptional splicing efficiency correlates with density of 19 epigenetic modifications. Total intron number and intron position are two predominant sequence features that correlate with co-transcriptional splicing efficiency, and introns with alternative 5′ or 3′ splice sites are less efficiently spliced. Furthermore, we found that trans-acting protein mutations lead to more introns with increased splicing defects in nascent RNAs than in mature RNAs, and that introns with increased splicing defects in mature RNAs are inefficiently spliced at the co-transcriptional level. Our results not only uncovered widespread co-transcriptional splicing in Arabidopsis, but also uncovered features that may affect or be affected by co-transcriptional splicing efficiency.
Project description:How the splicing machinery defines exons or introns as the spliced unit has remained a puzzle for 30 years. Here we demonstrate that peripheral and central regions of the nucleus harbor genes with two distinct exon-intron GC content architectures that differ in the splicing outcome. Genes with low GC content exons, flanked by long introns with lower GC content, are localized in the periphery, and the exons are defined as the spliced unit. Alternative splicing of these genes results in exon skipping. In contrast, the nuclear center contains genes with a high GC content in the exons and short flanking introns. Most splicing of these genes occurs via intron definition, and aberrant splicing leads to intron retention. We demonstrate that the nuclear periphery and center generate different environments for the regulation of alternative splicing, and that two sets of splicing factors form discrete regulatory subnetworks for the two gene architectures. Our study connects 3D genome organization and splicing, thus demonstrating that exon and intron definition modes of splicing occur in different nuclear regions.
Project description:Intron retention (IR) is an alternative splicing event where mRNAs containing unspliced introns are exported to the cytoplasm and then either translated, giving rise to new protein isoforms, or degraded via the nonsense-mediated decay pathway. However, unspliced introns are also seen in nuclear RNA. Some of these are spliced at a low rate but do eventually become fully spliced and their respective mRNAs exported, while others stay retained and are recognized by nuclear decay machineries. IR has been shown to be regulated during granulocyte and neuronal differentiation and in some cancers, and a subset of the nuclear retained introns, called detained introns, have been implicated in growth control pathways. Despite many findings on IR and its biological significance, it is still not clear whether an incompletely spliced intron observed is a true retained intron that is exported as an mRNA or is a product of slow splicing that remains in the nucleus. A better understanding is needed of the molecular events that reduce intron excision rate and determine the release of an RNA for export. We have found that some genes in mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) produce RNAs that are highly associated with the high molecular-weight nuclear pellet (chromatin), rather than the soluble nucleoplasm or cytoplasm. This chromatin-associated RNA is polyadenylated, usually contains one or more incompletely spliced introns, and is often extensively bound by polypyrimidine tract-binding protein 1 (PTBP1). We hypothesize that PTBP1 inhibits splicing of these introns, and this causes sequestration of the transcript on chromatin. We are studying the role of PTBP1 in inhibiting intron excision and anchoring RNAs in the nuclear and chromatin compartments of mESCs.
Project description:Co-transcriptional splicing of introns is a defining feature of eukaryotic gene expression. We show that the mammalian spliceosome specifically associates with the S5P CTD isoform of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) as it elongates across spliced exons of protein coding genes, both in human Hela and murine lymphoid cell lines. Immuno-precipitation of MNase digested chromatin with phospho CTD specific antibodies reveals that components of the active spliceosome (both snRNA and proteins) form a specific complex with S5P CTD Pol II. Furthermore a dominant splicing intermediate formed by cleavage at intron 5’ss results in the tethering of upstream exons to this complex at all spliced exons. These are invariably connected to upstream spliced constitutive and less frequently to alternative exons. Finally S5P CTD Pol II accumulates over spliced exons but not adjacent introns. We propose that mammalian splicing employs a rapid, co-transcriptional splicing mechanism based on CTD phosphorylation transitions.
Project description:Pre-mRNA splicing is carried out by the spliceosome and involves splice site recognition, removal of introns, and ligation of exons. Components of the spliceosome have been shown to interact with the elongating RNA polymerase II (RNAPII), which is thought to allow splicing to occur concurrently with transcription. However, little is known about the regulation and efficiency of cotranscriptional splicing in human cells. In this study, we used Bru-seq and BruChase-seq to determine the cotranscriptional splicing efficiencies of 17,000 introns expressed across six human cell lines. We found that less than half of all introns across these six cell lines were cotranscriptionally spliced. Splicing efficiencies for individual introns showed variations across cell lines, suggesting that splicing may be regulated in a cell type–specific manner. Moreover, the splicing efficiency of introns varied within genes. The efficiency of cotranscriptional splicing did not correlate with gene length, intron position, splice site strengths, or the intron/neighboring exons GC content. However, we identified binding signals from multiple RNA binding proteins (RBPs) that correlated with splicing efficiency, including core spliceosomal machinery components—such as SF3B4, U2AF1, and U2AF2 showing higher binding signals in poorly spliced introns. In addition, multiple RBPs, such as BUD13, PUM1, and SND1, showed preferential binding in exons that flank introns with high splicing efficiencies. The nascent RNA splicing patterns presented here across multiple cell types add to our understanding of the complexity in RNA splicing, wherein RNA-binding proteins may play important roles in determining splicing outcomes in a cell type– and intron-specific manner.
Project description:Analysis of splicing defects in Schizosaccharomyces pombe upon chemical genetic inhibition of splicing kinases dsk1, lkh1, and prp4, as well as alanine-mutation of phosphorylated residues in the splicing factors bpb1, prp2, rsd1, srp1, srp2, usp101, usp103, sum3, prp22, cdc5, and cwf22. This study shows the splicing kinase dsk1 modulates splicing efficiency of introns with non-consensus splice sites, likely through phosphorylation of bpb1. Modulation of splicing efficiency of transcripts through kinase signaling pathways may afford the necessary flexibility to tune the gene expression profile in response to environmental and developmental cues. Experiments were conducted as direct two-color designs with 2-3 biological replicates per genotype pairing. Raw microarray data was normalized with loess normalization using the R package limma. Log2-fold changes (perturbation over reference) are reported. Each splicing event on the custom-designed splicing microarray was monitored with an exon probe reading out mRNA changes, an intron probe for unspliced pre-mRNA, and a splice junction probe spanning the junction between two spliced exons. For the analysis of the splicing efficiency for a given intron, a score was calculated as exon*intron/junction.
Project description:Widespread co-transcriptional splicing has been demonstrated from yeast to human. However, measuring the kinetics of splicing relative to transcription has been hampered by technical challenges. Here, we took advantage of native elongating transcript sequencing (NET-seq) to identify the position of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) when exons become ligated in the newly synthesized RNA. We analyzed Drosophila melanogaster embryos because the genes transcribed initially during development have few and short introns (like yeast genes), whereas genes transcribed later contain multiple long introns (more similar to human genes). Moreover, compared to human, the Drosophila genome is more compact and thus the coverage of NET-seq reads on intragenic regions is higher. We detected spliced NET-seq reads connected to Pol II molecules that were positioned just a few nucleotides downstream of the 3’ splice site. Although the majority of splice junctions were covered by spliced reads, many introns remained unspliced, resulting in a complex range of heterogeneity in splicing dynamics. Introns that show splicing completion before Pol II has reached the end of the downstream exon are necessarily intron-defined. As expected, we found a relationship between the proportion of spliced reads and intron size. However, intron definition was observed at all intron sizes. Both canonical and recursive splicing were associated with a higher Pol II density, suggesting a splicing-coupled mechanism that slows down transcription elongation. We further observed that transcription termination was very efficient for isolated genes but that the presence of an overlapping antisense gene was often associated with transcriptional read-through. Taken together, our data unravels novel dynamic features of Pol II transcription and splicing in the developing Drosophila embryo.