Open AccessConcurrent binding to DNA and RNA facilitates the pluripotency reprogramming activity of Sox2
Author(s) -
Linlin Hou,
Yuanjie Wei,
Yingying Lin,
Xiwei Wang,
Yiwei Lai,
Meng Yin,
Yanpu Chen,
Xiangpeng Guo,
Senbin Wu,
Yindi Zhu,
Jie Yuan,
Muhammad Tariq,
Na Li,
Hao Sun,
Huating Wang,
Xiaofei Zhang,
Jiekai Chen,
Xichen Bao,
Ralf Jauch
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
nucleic acids research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 9.008
H-Index - 537
eISSN - 1362-4954
pISSN - 0305-1048
DOI - 10.1093/nar/gkaa067
Subject(s) - biology , rna , reprogramming , dna , rna binding protein , sox2 , transcription (linguistics) , microbiology and biotechnology , transcription factor , genetics , gene , linguistics , philosophy
Some transcription factors that specifically bind double-stranded DNA appear to also function as RNA-binding proteins. Here, we demonstrate that the transcription factor Sox2 is able to directly bind RNA in vitro as well as in mouse and human cells. Sox2 targets RNA via a 60-amino-acid RNA binding motif (RBM) positioned C-terminally of the DNA binding high mobility group (HMG) box. Sox2 can associate with RNA and DNA simultaneously to form ternary RNA/Sox2/DNA complexes. Deletion of the RBM does not affect selection of target genes but mitigates binding to pluripotency related transcripts, switches exon usage and impairs the reprogramming of somatic cells to a pluripotent state. Our findings designate Sox2 as a multi-functional factor that associates with RNA whilst binding to cognate DNA sequences, suggesting that it may co-transcriptionally regulate RNA metabolism during somatic cell reprogramming.