RNA binding by the glucocorticoid receptor attenuates dexamethasone-induced gene activation

Autor: Nickolaus C. Lammer, Humza M. Ashraf, Daniella A. Ugay, Sabrina L. Spencer, Mary A. Allen, Robert T. Batey, Deborah S. Wuttke
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Scientific Reports, Vol 13, Iss 1, Pp 1-15 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2045-2322
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-35549-y
Popis: Abstract The glucocorticoid receptor (GR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor that regulates a suite of genes through direct binding of GR to specific DNA promoter elements. GR also interacts with RNA, but the function of this RNA-binding activity remains elusive. Current models speculate that RNA could repress the transcriptional activity of GR. To investigate the function of the GR-RNA interaction on GR’s transcriptional activity, we generated cells that stably express a mutant of GR with reduced RNA binding affinity and treated the cells with the GR agonist dexamethasone. Changes in the dexamethasone-driven transcriptome were quantified using 4-thiouridine labeling of RNAs followed by high-throughput sequencing. We find that while many genes are unaffected, GR-RNA binding is repressive for specific subsets of genes in both dexamethasone-dependent and independent contexts. Genes that are dexamethasone-dependent are activated directly by chromatin-bound GR, suggesting a competition-based repression mechanism in which increasing local concentrations of RNA may compete with DNA for binding to GR at sites of transcription. Unexpectedly, genes that are dexamethasone-independent instead display a localization to specific chromosomal regions, which points to changes in chromatin accessibility or architecture. These results show that RNA binding plays a fundamental role in regulating GR function and highlights potential functions for transcription factor-RNA interactions.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
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