RNA-RNA Interactions Enable Specific Targeting of Noncoding RNAs to Nascent Pre-mRNAs and Chromatin Sites

Intermolecular RNA-RNA interactions are used by many noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) to achieve their diverse functions. To aid in identifying these contacts, we developed a method based on RNA Antisense Purification to systematically map RNA-RNA interactions (RAP-RNA) and applied it to investigate two ncRN...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sirokman, Klara, McDonel, Patrick, Shishkin, Alexander A., Surka, Christine, Russell, Pamela, Chow, Amy Y., Guttman, Mitchell, Lander, Eric Steven, Engreitz, Jesse Michael, Grossman, Sharon Rachel
Other Authors: Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Elsevier 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/106849
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5754-1719
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5410-7274
Description
Summary:Intermolecular RNA-RNA interactions are used by many noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) to achieve their diverse functions. To aid in identifying these contacts, we developed a method based on RNA Antisense Purification to systematically map RNA-RNA interactions (RAP-RNA) and applied it to investigate two ncRNAs implicated in RNA processing: U1 snRNA, a component of the spliceosome, and Malat1, a lncRNA that localizes to nuclear speckles. U1 and Malat1 interact with nascent transcripts through distinct targeting mechanisms. Using differential crosslinking, we confirmed that U1 directly hybridizes to both 5’ splice sites and 5’-splice-site motifs throughout introns and found that Malat1 interacts with pre-mRNAs indirectly through protein intermediates. Interactions with nascent pre-mRNAs cause U1 and Malat1 to localize proximally to chromatin at active genes, demonstrating that ncRNAs can use RNA-RNA interactions to target specific premRNAs and genomic sites. RAP-RNA is sensitive to lower abundance RNAs as well, making it generally applicable for investigating ncRNAs.