Abstract

The nuclear RNA exosome complex mediates the processing of structured RNAs and the decay of aberrant non-coding RNAs, an important function particularly in human cells. Most mechanistic studies to date have focused on the yeast system. Here, we reconstituted and studied the properties of a recombinant 14-subunit human nuclear exosome complex. In biochemical assays, the human exosome embeds a longer RNA channel than its yeast counterpart. The 3.8 Å resolution cryo-EM structure of the core complex bound to a single-stranded RNA reveals that the RNA channel path is formed by two distinct features of the hDIS3 exoribonuclease: an open conformation and a domain organization more similar to bacterial RNase II than to yeast Rrp44. The cryo-EM structure of the holo-complex shows how obligate nuclear cofactors position the hMTR4 helicase at the entrance of the core complex, suggesting a striking structural conservation from lower to higher eukaryotes.

Data availability

The cryo-EM density maps are deposited in the Electron Microscopy Data Bank under accession numbers EMD-0127 and EMD-0128. The atomic model is deposited in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) under accession number 6H25.

The following data sets were generated
    1. Schuller JM
    2. Falk S
    3. Basquin J
    4. Conti E
    (2018) Human nuclear RNA exosome EXO-14 complex (cryo-EM density map)
    Publicly available at the Electron Microscopy Data Bank (accession no: EMD-0127).
    1. Schuller JM
    2. Falk S
    3. Basquin J
    4. Conti E
    (2018) Cryo-EM density map
    Publicly available at the Electron Microscopy Data Bank (accession no: EMD-0128).

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Piotr Gerlach

    Department of Structural Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Munich, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9599-7322
  2. Jan M Schuller

    Department of Structural Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Munich, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-9121-1764
  3. Fabien Bonneau

    Department of Structural Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Munich, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8787-7662
  4. Jerome Basquin

    Department of Structural Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Peter Reichelt

    Department of Structural Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Munich, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Sebastian Falk

    Department of Structural Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Munich, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7848-4621
  7. Elena Conti

    Department of Structural Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Munich, Germany
    For correspondence
    conti@biochem.mpg.de
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1254-5588

Funding

European Molecular Biology Organization (ALTF 1008-2015)

  • Piotr Gerlach

European Commission (ERC-2016-ADG 740329 EXORICO)

  • Elena Conti

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB646)

  • Elena Conti

Louis-Jeantet Foundation

  • Elena Conti

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

  • Elena Conti

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB1035)

  • Elena Conti

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (GRK1721)

  • Elena Conti

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Sjors HW Scheres, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom

Version history

  1. Received: May 26, 2018
  2. Accepted: July 17, 2018
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: July 26, 2018 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: August 2, 2018 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2018, Gerlach 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

  • 3,194
    views
  • 586
    downloads
  • 45
    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. Piotr Gerlach
  2. Jan M Schuller
  3. Fabien Bonneau
  4. Jerome Basquin
  5. Peter Reichelt
  6. Sebastian Falk
  7. Elena Conti
(2018)
Distinct and evolutionary conserved structural features of the human nuclear exosome complex
eLife 7:e38686.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.38686

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.38686

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.

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
    Isabelle Petit-Hartlein, Annelise Vermot ... Franck Fieschi
    Research Article

    NADPH oxidases (NOX) are transmembrane proteins, widely spread in eukaryotes and prokaryotes, that produce reactive oxygen species (ROS). Eukaryotes use the ROS products for innate immune defense and signaling in critical (patho)physiological processes. Despite the recent structures of human NOX isoforms, the activation of electron transfer remains incompletely understood. SpNOX, a homolog from Streptococcus pneumoniae, can serves as a robust model for exploring electron transfers in the NOX family thanks to its constitutive activity. Crystal structures of SpNOX full-length and dehydrogenase (DH) domain constructs are revealed here. The isolated DH domain acts as a flavin reductase, and both constructs use either NADPH or NADH as substrate. Our findings suggest that hydride transfer from NAD(P)H to FAD is the rate-limiting step in electron transfer. We identify significance of F397 in nicotinamide access to flavin isoalloxazine and confirm flavin binding contributions from both DH and Transmembrane (TM) domains. Comparison with related enzymes suggests that distal access to heme may influence the final electron acceptor, while the relative position of DH and TM does not necessarily correlate with activity, contrary to previous suggestions. It rather suggests requirement of an internal rearrangement, within the DH domain, to switch from a resting to an active state. Thus, SpNOX appears to be a good model of active NOX2, which allows us to propose an explanation for NOX2’s requirement for activation.