Browsing by Subject "miRNAs"

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Open Access
Characterization of a novel IRE1 substrate pact and interacting miRNAS
(2022-06) Doğan, Aslı Ekin
The double-stranded RNA-dependent protein kinase activator A (PACT) anchors the RNAinduced silencing complex (RISC) to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)’s membranous platform where RISC nucleation occurs and thus, PACT plays a key role in microRNA (miR)-mediated translational repression. Previous studies have shown that ER stress leads to PACT phosphorylation while simultaneously inducing changes in the expression of many miRs. Here, we demonstrate that PACT is phosphorylated by the ER-resident Inositol-requiring enzyme-1 (IRE1), a bifunctional kinase/endoribonuclease (RNase), both under ER stress and no stress conditions. While the role of IRE1 as a stress-induced RNase driving the unfolded protein response (UPR) is well understood, the function or the target(s) of its kinase activity have remained unexplored. Findings of this thesis show that IRE1- mediated phosphorylation of PACT regulates mature miR-181c levels, which suppresses the expression of key regulators of mitochondrial biogenesis (mitobiogenesis). Phosphorylation by IRE1 causes PACT-mediated suppression of mitobiogenesis and respiration. Partial PACT-deficiency in mice leads to enhanced mitobiogenesis during brown fat activation in cells and mice. Furthermore, cardiopulmonary bypass-induced ischemia/reperfusion injury downregulates PACT protein expression in human hearts while simultaneously inducing mitobiogenesis. Collectively, these findings demonstrate PACTmiR- 181c signaling axis is a key regulator of mitochondrial biogenesis and energetics.
Open Access
A shiny application for pancan survival analysis with paralog/miRNA pairs and in vitro validation of miRNA synergism in liver cancer
(2022-09) Tombaz, Melike
Emerging cancer survival tools can predict risk of disease and identify prognostic biomarkers. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards models with mRNA and microRNAs (miRNAs) expression can differentiate survival outcomes. Previous studies showed that genes that belong to the same pathways/families may act independently, and in a cancer-specific manner. In this thesis, cancer-dependent hazard ratios of paralog genes and sense-antisense strands of miRNAs were tested for TCGA PANCAN. The results were presented in a R/Shiny web application that provides gene-by-survival networks. The gene-by-survival network approach also was applied to the plasma membrane-endoplasmic reticulum (PM-ER) calcium channel geneset. Among paralogs, cancer-specific prognostic signatures and functional compartmentalization were observed. Some cancers like UVM, MESO emerged as hub cancers for PM-ER signalling. Further the proposed gene-by-survival network approach has been extended for miRNA-mRNA triplets that may act in synergy in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Next, the effects of synergistic miRNA pairs provided by miRCoop algorithm were tested on cell viability and target gene expression for selected triplets. The results have revealed that the combinatorial miRNA treatments show promising results as RNAi therapeutics yet future studies with different doses and triplets are needed.
Open Access
sncRNA-1 is a small noncoding RNA produced by Mycobacterium tuberculosis in infected cells that positively regulates genes coupled to oleic acid biosynthesis
(Frontiers Media S.A., 2020-06) Coşkun, F. S.; Srivastava, S.; Raj, P.; Dozmorov, I.; Belkaya, Serkan; Mehra, S.; Golden, N. A.; Bucsan, A. N.; Chapagain, M. L.; Wakeland, E. K.; Kaushal, D.; Gumbo, T.; van Oers, N. S. C.
Nearly one third of the world’s population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). While much work has focused on the role of different Mtb encoded proteins in pathogenesis, recent studies have revealed that Mtb also transcribes many noncoding RNAs whose functions remain poorly characterized. We performed RNA sequencing and identified a subset of Mtb H37Rv-encoded small RNAs (<30 nts in length) that were produced in infected macrophages. Designated as smaller noncoding RNAs (sncRNAs), three of these predominated the read counts. Each of the three, sncRNA-1, sncRNA-6, and sncRNA-8 had surrounding sequences with predicted stable secondary RNA stem loops. Site-directed mutagenesis of the precursor sequences suggest the existence of a hairpin loop dependent RNA processing mechanism. A functional assessment of sncRNA-1 suggested that it positively regulated two mycobacterial transcripts involved in oleic acid biosynthesis. Complementary loss- and gain- of-function approaches revealed that sncRNA-1 positively supports Mtb growth and survival in nutrient-depleted cultures as well as in infected macrophages. Overall, the findings reveal that Mtb produces sncRNAs in infected cells, with sncRNA-1 modulating mycobacterial gene expression including genes coupled to oleic acid biogenesis.