Project description:Intron retention (IR) constitutes a less explored form of alternative splicing, wherein introns are retained within mature mRNA transcripts. Our investigation demonstrates that the CDC-like kinase 2 (CLK2) undergoes liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) within nuclear speckles in response to heat shock (HS). The formation of CLK2 condensates depends on the intrinsically disordered region (IDR) located within the N-terminal amino acids 1-148. Phosphorylation at residue T343 sustains CLK2 kinase activity and facilitates autophosphorylation, thus inhibiting the LLPS activity of the IDR. These CLK2 condensates initiate the reorganization of nuclear speckles, transforming them into larger, rounded structures. Moreover, these condensates facilitate the recruitment of splicing factors into these compartments, potentially restricting their access to mRNA for intron splicing. Consequently, the formation of CLK2 condensates promotes the IR.
Project description:We established the HeLa cells expressing the GFP (control) or CLK2 (WT) and subjected them to heat shock. These cells were subjected to RNA-seq for the alternative splicing analysis.
Project description:Our results show that CLK2 undergoes liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) in response to heat shock stress. Phosphorylation of CLK2 at T343 prevents the LLPS of CLK2. To identify the proteins that recruited to the CLK2 condensates, we immunoprecipitated CLK2 (WT) or (T343A) proteins with FLAG antibody and performed mass spectrometry to detect the interacting proteins.
Project description:Exposure to certain stresses leads to readthrough transcription downstream of gene ends. Here we found that this phenomenon impacts the expression of genes located downstream to readthrough genes, whereby readthrough transcription proceeds into downstream genes, termed read-in genes. Using polyA-selected RNA-seq data from mouse fibroblasts, we identified widespread read-in in heat shock, oxidative and osmotic stress conditions. Read-in genes share distinctive genomic characteristics; they are extremely short, mainly due to less, shorter, introns, and they are highly GC rich. Furthermore, using ribosome footprint profiling we found that the translation of genes with high degrees of read-in is significantly reduced. Strikingly, read-in genes show extremely high levels of intron retention during stress, mostly in their first intron. While read-in genes share features that are generally associated with increased likelihood of intron retention, such as short introns and high GC content, intron retention in read-in genes during stress exceeds greatly beyond what is expected given their genomic properties. Finally, we found that first introns in read-in genes have weaker 5’ and 3’ splice sites. Our data portray a relationship between read-in and intron retention, suggesting it may have co-evolved to facilitate reduced translation of read-in genes during stress.
Project description:We present an analysis of intron retention under stress from two different drugs and their combinations in yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We previously established isogrowth profiling, a method to abstract the non-specific effects of growth rate inhibition from the specific effect of perturbation by a small molecule: two drugs are used at varied ratios, but at fixed overall growth inhibition. Here, cycloheximide and LiCl were used at seven different ratios along the 50% growth inhibition isobole and the total ribodepleted RNA was sequenced. This allowed us to gauge the changes in intron retention due to the used drugs, while ensuring that the effects are not caused by growth inhibition. We found a prominent increase in intron retention under LiCl treatment that preferentially affects introns contained in the transcripts of ribosomal proteins.
Project description:We established the HeLa cells expressing the GFP (control) or CLK2 (T343A) with deletion of the IDR [T343A (dIDR)]. These cells were subjected to RNA-seq for the alternative splicing analysis.