Abstract
Transcription pause release from gene promoters has been recognized to be a critical point for transcriptional regulation in higher eukaryotes. Recent studies suggest that regulatory RNAs are extensively involved in transcriptional control, which may enlist various RNA binding proteins. We recently showed a key role of SRSF2, a member of the SR family of splicing regulators, in binding to promoter-associated small RNA to mediate transcription pause release, a regulatory strategy akin to the function of the HIV Tat protein via binding to the TAR element in nascent RNA to activate transcription. In this report, we further dissect the structural requirement for SRSF2 to function as a transcription activator and extend the analysis to multiple SR and hnRNP proteins by using the MS2 tethering strategy. Our results reveal that SRSF2 is a unique SR protein that activates transcription in a position-dependent manner while three other SR proteins enhance translation in a position-independent fashion. In contrast, multiple hnRNP proteins appear to negatively influence mRNA levels, especially when tethered in the gene body. These findings suggest broad participation of RNA binding proteins in diverse aspects of regulated gene expression at both the transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels in mammalian cells.
Submitted
09/24/13
Revised
10/23/13
Accepted
10/23/13
Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest
No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the China 973 program (2011CB811300, 2012CB910800), the Chinese 111 program grant (B06018) and NIH grants (GM049369, HG004659, HG007005) to X-DF.