Project description:Telomerase-negative tumors can maintain telomere length by alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) but the mechanism of telomere maintenance in ALT cells is not well understood. A significant portion of the relapse Neuroblastoma (NB) tumors are positive for ALT which suggests better dissecting the ALT mechanism could provide novel therapeutic opportunities. TERRA RNA which is derived from the telomere ends is localized to telomeres in R-loop dependent manner and is essential for telomere maintenance. In the present study, we provide evidence that RNA modification at the N6 position of internal adenosine (m6A) in TERRA RNA by methyl transferase METTL3 is essential for telomere maintenance in ALT cells and loss of TERRA m6A/METTL3 leads to accumulation of DNA damage over telomere. Our data suggest that m6A modification in TERRA RNA is required for R-loop formation and telomere targeting of TERRA. We observed that R-loop enriched TERRA is abundantly m6A modified and m6A mediated recruitment of hnRNPA2B1 to TERRA RNA is essential for R-loop formation. Together our study suggests that m6A-mediated R-loop formation could be a widespread mechanism utilized by other chromatin-interacting lncRNAs. We also show treating ALT positive NB cells with small molecule METTL3 inhibitor leads to compromised telomere targeting of TERRA and accumulation of DNA damage over telomere, suggesting METTL3 inhibition could be a therapeutic opportunity for ALT positive NB.
Project description:Telomerase-negative tumors can maintain telomere length by alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) but the mechanism of telomere maintenance in ALT cells is not well understood. A significant portion of the relapse Neuroblastoma (NB) tumors are positive for ALT which suggests better dissecting the ALT mechanism could provide novel therapeutic opportunities. TERRA RNA which is derived from the telomere ends is localized to telomeres in R-loop dependent manner and is essential for telomere maintenance. In the present study, we provide evidence that RNA modification at the N6 position of internal adenosine (m6A) in TERRA RNA by methyl transferase METTL3 is essential for telomere maintenance in ALT cells and loss of TERRA m6A/METTL3 leads to accumulation of DNA damage over telomere. Our data suggest that m6A modification in TERRA RNA is required for R-loop formation and telomere targeting of TERRA. We observed that R-loop enriched TERRA is abundantly m6A modified and m6A mediated recruitment of hnRNPA2B1 to TERRA RNA is essential for R-loop formation. Together our study suggests that m6A-mediated R-loop formation could be a widespread mechanism utilized by other chromatin-interacting lncRNAs. We also show treating ALT positive NB cells with small molecule METTL3 inhibitor leads to compromised telomere targeting of TERRA and accumulation of DNA damage over telomere, suggesting METTL3 inhibition could be a therapeutic opportunity for ALT positive NB.
Project description:Telomerase-negative tumors can maintain telomere length by alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) but the mechanism of telomere maintenance in ALT cells is not well understood. A significant portion of the relapse Neuroblastoma (NB) tumors are positive for ALT which suggests better dissecting the ALT mechanism could provide novel therapeutic opportunities. TERRA RNA which is derived from the telomere ends is localized to telomeres in R-loop dependent manner and is essential for telomere maintenance. In the present study, we provide evidence that RNA modification at the N6 position of internal adenosine (m6A) in TERRA RNA by methyl transferase METTL3 is essential for telomere maintenance in ALT cells and loss of TERRA m6A/METTL3 leads to accumulation of DNA damage over telomere. Our data suggest that m6A modification in TERRA RNA is required for R-loop formation and telomere targeting of TERRA. We observed that R-loop enriched TERRA is abundantly m6A modified and m6A mediated recruitment of hnRNPA2B1 to TERRA RNA is essential for R-loop formation. Together our study suggests that m6A-mediated R-loop formation could be a widespread mechanism utilized by other chromatin-interacting lncRNAs. We also show treating ALT positive NB cells with small molecule METTL3 inhibitor leads to compromised telomere targeting of TERRA and accumulation of DNA damage over telomere, suggesting METTL3 inhibition could be a therapeutic opportunity for ALT positive NB.
Project description:Alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) is a homology-directed repair (HDR) mechanism of telomere elongation that controls proliferation in subsets of highly aggressive cancer. Recent studies have revealed that TERRA (telomere repeat-containing RNA) acts to initiate ALT-associated HDR (ALT-HDR). Here we report that RAD51AP1, a crucial ALT factor, interacts with TERRA and utilizes it to generate D- and R- loop HR intermediates. We also show that RAD51AP1 binds to and may generate and potentially stabilize TERRA-containing R-loops as RAD51AP1 depletion reduces R-loop formation at telomere DNA breaks. Proteomic analyses uncover a new role for RAD51AP1 mediated TERRA R-loop homeostasis in a mechanism of chromatin-directed suppression of TERRA and prevention of transcription-replication collisions during ALT-HDR. Intriguingly, we find that both TERRA binding and this non-canonical function of RAD51AP1 require its intrinsic SUMO-SIM regulatory axis. These findings provide new insights into the multi-contextual functions of RAD51AP1 within the ALT mechanism and regulation of TERRA.
Project description:Data in support of Vohhodina et al. "BRCA1 maintains telomere integrity through suppression of TERRA RNA and TERRA R-loop-induced DNA damage"
Project description:Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (ALT) cancer cells are a subset of cancers that depend on the homologous recombination mechanism to extend their telomere length independent of telomerase. ALT cells contain elevated levels of the telomeric-repeat containing long noncoding RNA (TERRA), which is an RNA transcribed by RNA polymerase II and can form RNA:DNA (R-loops) hybrids at telomeres. Lines of evidence have shown that the formation of R-loops at telomeres could be one of the mechanisms to trigger DNA repair to lengthen telomeres. We perform iDRiP-MS, a method to capture specific RNA interacting protein by UV light crosslinking using antisense probe capture (Chu et al., 2017a; Minajigi et al., 2015), to explore the TERRA interactomes in human ALT cancer cell. Our TERRA interactome data reveals that TERRA interacts with an extensive subset of DNA repair proteins in ALT cells including the endonuclease XPF, suggesting that TERRA R-loops activate DDR via XPF to promote homologous recombination and telomere replication to drive ALT.
Project description:Here we found that ILF3 prefers to bind telomere R-loops and protects telomere from aberrant homologous recombination. ILF3 knockout induces TERRA aggregation onto telomere and activates telomere DNA damage response (DDR). Furthermore, ILF3 deficiency disrupts telomere homeostasis and induces abnormal ALT-mediated telomere lengthening