PUMILIO hyperactivity drives premature aging of Norad-deficient mice
- University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, United States
- Nationwide Children's Hospital, United States
Abstract
Although numerous long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been identified, our understanding of their roles in mammalian physiology remains limited. Here we investigated the physiologic function of the conserved lncRNA Norad in vivo. Deletion of Norad in mice results in genomic instability and mitochondrial dysfunction, leading to a dramatic multi-system degenerative phenotype resembling premature aging. Loss of tissue homeostasis in Norad-deficient animals is attributable to augmented activity of PUMILIO proteins, which act as post-transcriptional repressors of target mRNAs to which they bind. Norad is the preferred RNA target of PUMILIO2 (PUM2) in mouse tissues and, upon loss of Norad, PUM2 hyperactively represses key genes required for mitosis and mitochondrial function. Accordingly, enforced Pum2 expression fully phenocopies Norad deletion, resulting in rapid-onset aging-associated phenotypes. These findings provide new insights and open new lines of investigation into the roles of noncoding RNAs and RNA binding proteins in normal physiology and aging.
Data availability
RNA-seq and eCLIP data has been deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) at NCBI (Accession numbers GSE121684, GSE121688, and GSE125539).
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Identification of RNAs bound to PUM2 in Norad+/+ and Norad-/- brains [CLIP-seq]NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus, GSE121684.
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Gene expression profiles in Norad+/+ and Norad-/- brains and spleens [RNA-seq]NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus, GSE121688.
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Gene expression profiles in double transgenic (DT, Pum2;rtTA3) and control (CTR, Pum2 and wild-type) spleensNCBI Gene Expression Omnibus, GSE125539.
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Gene expression profiles in NORAD knockout and PUMILIO overexpressing cellsNCBI Gene Expression Omnibus, GSE75440.
Article and author information
Author details
Mahmoud M Elguindy
Funding
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Hongtao Yu
- Joshua T Mendell
National Institutes of Health (R35CA197311)
- Joshua T Mendell
Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (RP160249)
- Yang Xie
- Joshua T Mendell
Welch Foundation (I-1961-20180324)
- Joshua T Mendell
German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (LPDS 2014-12)
- Florian Kopp
National Institutes of Health (P30CA142543)
- Joshua T Mendell
National Institutes of Health (P50CA196516)
- Joshua T Mendell
Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (RP150596)
- Yang Xie
- Joshua T Mendell
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols of The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (Animal Protocol Number 2017-102001) and The Ohio State University, Nationwide Children's Hospital (Animal Protocol Number AR12-00014).
Copyright
© 2019, Kopp 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.
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PUMILIO hyperactivity drives premature aging of Norad-deficient mice
eLife 8:e42650.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.42650
Further reading
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- Chromosomes and Gene Expression
- Genetics and Genomics
Deleting a long noncoding RNA drives premature aging in mice.
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- Cell Biology
- Chromosomes and Gene Expression
Meiotic crossover recombination is essential for both accurate chromosome segregation and the generation of new haplotypes for natural selection to act upon. This requirement is known as crossover assurance and is one example of crossover control. While the conserved role of the ATPase, PCH-2, during meiotic prophase has been enigmatic, a universal phenotype when pch-2 or its orthologs are mutated is a change in the number and distribution of meiotic crossovers. Here, we show that PCH-2 controls the number and distribution of crossovers by antagonizing their formation. This antagonism produces different effects at different stages of meiotic prophase: early in meiotic prophase, PCH-2 prevents double-strand breaks from becoming crossover-eligible intermediates, limiting crossover formation at sites of initial double-strand break formation and homolog interactions. Later in meiotic prophase, PCH-2 winnows the number of crossover-eligible intermediates, contributing to the designation of crossovers and ultimately, crossover assurance. We also demonstrate that PCH-2 accomplishes this regulation through the meiotic HORMAD, HIM-3. Our data strongly support a model in which PCH-2’s conserved role is to remodel meiotic HORMADs throughout meiotic prophase to destabilize crossover-eligible precursors and coordinate meiotic recombination with synapsis, ensuring the progressive implementation of meiotic recombination and explaining its function in the pachytene checkpoint and crossover control.
