Abstract

Accelerating discoveries of noncoding RNA (ncRNA) in myriad biological processes pose major challenges to structural and functional analysis. Despite progress in secondary structure modeling, high-throughput methods have generally failed to determine ncRNA tertiary structures, even at the 1-nm resolution that enables visualization of how helices and functional motifs are positioned in three dimensions. We report that integrating a new method called MOHCA-seq (Multiplexed •OH Cleavage Analysis with paired-end sequencing) with mutate-and-map secondary structure inference guides Rosetta 3D modeling to consistent 1-nm accuracy for intricately folded ncRNAs with lengths up to 188 nucleotides, including a blind RNA-puzzle challenge, the lariat-capping ribozyme. This multidimensional chemical mapping (MCM) pipeline resolves unexpected tertiary proximities for cyclic-di-GMP, glycine, and adenosylcobalamin riboswitch aptamers without their ligands and a loose structure for the recently discovered human HoxA9D IRES regulon. MCM offers a sequencing-based route to uncovering ncRNA 3D structure, applicable to functionally important but potentially heterogeneous states.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Clarence Yu Cheng

    Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Fang-Chieh Chou

    Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Wipapat Kladwang

    Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Siqi Tian

    Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Pablo Cordero

    Biomedical Informatics Program, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Rhiju Das

    Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
    For correspondence
    rhiju@stanford.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Timothy W Nilsen, Case Western Reserve University, United States

Version history

  1. Received: March 19, 2015
  2. Accepted: June 2, 2015
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: June 2, 2015 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: July 8, 2015 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2015, Yu Cheng et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 3,080
    views
  • 684
    downloads
  • 54
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Clarence Yu Cheng
  2. Fang-Chieh Chou
  3. Wipapat Kladwang
  4. Siqi Tian
  5. Pablo Cordero
  6. Rhiju Das
(2015)
Consistent global structures of complex RNA states through multidimensional chemical mapping
eLife 4:e07600.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07600

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07600

Further reading

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Cell Biology
    Natalia Dolgova, Eva-Maria E Uhlemann ... Oleg Y Dmitriev
    Research Article

    Mediator of ERBB2-driven Cell Motility 1 (MEMO1) is an evolutionary conserved protein implicated in many biological processes; however, its primary molecular function remains unknown. Importantly, MEMO1 is overexpressed in many types of cancer and was shown to modulate breast cancer metastasis through altered cell motility. To better understand the function of MEMO1 in cancer cells, we analyzed genetic interactions of MEMO1 using gene essentiality data from 1028 cancer cell lines and found multiple iron-related genes exhibiting genetic relationships with MEMO1. We experimentally confirmed several interactions between MEMO1 and iron-related proteins in living cells, most notably, transferrin receptor 2 (TFR2), mitoferrin-2 (SLC25A28), and the global iron response regulator IRP1 (ACO1). These interactions indicate that cells with high MEMO1 expression levels are hypersensitive to the disruptions in iron distribution. Our data also indicate that MEMO1 is involved in ferroptosis and is linked to iron supply to mitochondria. We have found that purified MEMO1 binds iron with high affinity under redox conditions mimicking intracellular environment and solved MEMO1 structures in complex with iron and copper. Our work reveals that the iron coordination mode in MEMO1 is very similar to that of iron-containing extradiol dioxygenases, which also display a similar structural fold. We conclude that MEMO1 is an iron-binding protein that modulates iron homeostasis in cancer cells.