MAF1, a repressor of RNA polymerase III-dependent transcription, regulates bone mass

  1. Ellen Busschers
  2. Naseer Ahmad
  3. Li Sun
  4. James R Iben
  5. Christopher J Walkey
  6. Aleksandra Rusin
  7. Tony Yuen
  8. Clifford J Rosen
  9. Ian M Willis
  10. Mone Zaidi
  11. Deborah L Johnson  Is a corresponding author
  1. Baylor College of Medicine, United States
  2. Ican School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States
  3. Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, United States
  4. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States
  5. Maine Medical Center Research Institute, United States
  6. Albert Einstein College of Medicine, United States

Abstract

MAF1, a key repressor of RNA polymerase III-mediated transcription, has been shown to promote mesoderm formation in vitro. Here, we show that MAF1 plays a critical role in the regulation of osteoblast differentiation and bone mass. A high bone mass phenotype was noted in mice with a global deletion of Maf1 (Maf1-/- mice). However, osteoblasts isolated from Maf1-/- mice showed reduced osteoblastogenesis ex vivo. Therefore, we determined the effect of MAF1 overexpression specifically in cells from the mesenchymal lineage (Prx1-Cre;LSL-MAF1 mice). These mice showed increased bone mass. Ex vivo, cells from Prx1-Cre;LSL-MAF1 mice showed enhanced osteoblastogenesis concordant with their high bone mass phenotype. Thus, the high bone mass phenotype in Maf1-/- mice is likely due to the confounding effects of the global absence of Maf1 in Maf1-/- mice. MAF1 overexpression promoted osteoblast differentiation and shRNA-mediated Maf1 downregulation inhibited differentiation of ST2 cells, overall indicating MAF1 enhances osteoblast formation. We also found that, in contrast to MAF1 overexpression, other perturbations that repress RNA pol III transcription, including Brf1 knockdown and chemical inhibition of RNA pol III by ML-60218, inhibited osteoblast differentiation. All perturbations that decrease RNA pol III transcription, however, enhanced adipogenesis in ST2 cell cultures. RNA-seq was used to determine the basis for these opposing actions on osteoblast differentiation. The modalities used to perturb RNA pol III transcription resulted in distinct gene expression changes, indicating that this transcription process is highly sensitive and triggers diverse gene expression programs and phenotypic outcomes. Specifically, MAF1 induced genes in ST2 cells known to promote osteoblast differentiation. Furthermore, genes that are induced during osteoblast differentiation displayed codon bias. Together, these results reveal a novel role for MAF1 and RNA pol III-mediated transcription in osteoblast fate determination and differentiation and bone mass regulation.

Data availability

Raw and processed data from the RNA sequencing experiment determining gene expression before and during osteoblast differentiation has been uploaded to the GEO data base with accession nr. GSE203308.

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Ellen Busschers

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  2. Naseer Ahmad

    Department of Medicine, Ican School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9514-2703
  3. Li Sun

    Department of Medicine, Ican School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  4. James R Iben

    Division of Intramural Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  5. Christopher J Walkey

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  6. Aleksandra Rusin

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  7. Tony Yuen

    Department of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  8. Clifford J Rosen

    Maine Medical Center Research Institute, Scarborough, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  9. Ian M Willis

    Department of Biochemistry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6599-2395
  10. Mone Zaidi

    Department of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, United States
    Competing interests
    Mone Zaidi, Senior editor, eLife.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-5911-9522
  11. Deborah L Johnson

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, United States
    For correspondence
    deborah.johnson@bcm.edu
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1745-1580

Funding

National Cancer Institute (CA108614)

  • Tony Yuen
  • Clifford J Rosen
  • Ian M Willis
  • Mone Zaidi

National Cancer Institute (CA74138)

  • Li Sun

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 of the mice were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocol AN-6370 ofBaylor College of Medicine.

Copyright

This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.

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  1. Ellen Busschers
  2. Naseer Ahmad
  3. Li Sun
  4. James R Iben
  5. Christopher J Walkey
  6. Aleksandra Rusin
  7. Tony Yuen
  8. Clifford J Rosen
  9. Ian M Willis
  10. Mone Zaidi
  11. Deborah L Johnson
(2022)
MAF1, a repressor of RNA polymerase III-dependent transcription, regulates bone mass
eLife 11:e74740.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74740

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74740

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