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The Trypanosoma brucei RNA ‐Binding Protein Tb RRM 1 is Involved in the Transcription of a Subset of RNA Pol II ‐Dependent Genes
Author(s) -
Bañuelos Carolina P.,
Levy Gabriela V.,
Níttolo Analía G.,
Roser Leandro G.,
Tekiel Valeria,
Sánchez Daniel O.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of eukaryotic microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.067
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1550-7408
pISSN - 1066-5234
DOI - 10.1111/jeu.12716
Subject(s) - biology , trypanosoma brucei , transcription (linguistics) , rna , microbiology and biotechnology , rna binding protein , genetics , gene , linguistics , philosophy
It has been long thought that RNA Polymerase (Pol) II transcriptional regulation does not operate in trypanosomes. However, recent reports have suggested that these organisms could regulate RNA Pol II transcription by epigenetic mechanisms. In this paper, we investigated the role of Tb RRM 1 in transcriptional regulation of RNA Pol II ‐dependent genes by focusing both in genes located in a particular polycistronic transcription unit ( PTU ) and in the monocistronic units of the SL ‐ RNA genes. We showed that Tb RRM 1 is recruited throughout the PTU , with a higher presence on genes than intergenic regions. However, its depletion leads both to the decrease of nascent RNA and to chromatin compaction only of regions located distal to the main transcription start site. These findings suggest that Tb RRM 1 facilitates the RNA Pol II transcriptional elongation step by collaborating to maintain an open chromatin state in particular regions of the genome. Interestingly, the SL ‐ RNA genes do not recruit Tb RRM 1 and, after Tb RRM 1 knockdown, nascent SL ‐ RNA s accumulate while the chromatin state of these regions remains unchanged. Although it was previously suggested that Tb RRM 1 could regulate RNA Pol II ‐driven genes, we provide here the first experimental evidence which involves Tb RRM 1 to transcriptional regulation.