Publication:20161121154648

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Publication
URL http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22101243
Title Widespread generation of alternative UTRs contributes to sex-specific RNA binding by UNR

Authors Marija Mihailovic, Laurence Wurth, Federico Zambelli, Irina Abaza, Cristina Militti, Francesco M. Mancuso, Guglielmo Roma, Giulio Pavesi, Fátima Gebauer
Date 2012-01

Publisher RNA (New York, N.Y.)
DOI 10.1261/rna.029603.111
Tag Animals, DNA-Binding Proteins, Drosophila Proteins, Drosophila melanogaster, Female, Male, Nuclear Proteins, Promoter Regions, Genetic, RNA, Messenger, Sex Factors, Transcription Factors, Transcription, Genetic, Untranslated Regions



Abstract:
Upstream of N-ras (UNR) is a conserved RNA-binding protein that regulates mRNA translation and stability by binding to sites generally located in untranslated regions (UTRs). In Drosophila, sex-specific binding of UNR to msl2 mRNA and the noncoding RNA roX is believed to play key roles in the control of X-chromosome dosage compensation in both sexes. To investigate broader sex-specific functions of UNR, we have identified its RNA targets in adult male and female flies by high-throughput RNA binding and transcriptome analysis. Here we show that UNR binds to a large set of protein-coding transcripts and to a smaller set of noncoding RNAs in a sex-specific fashion. The analyses also reveal a strong correlation between sex-specific binding of UNR and sex-specific differential expression of UTRs in target genes. Validation experiments indicate that UNR indeed recognizes sex-specifically processed transcripts. These results suggest that UNR exploits the transcript diversity generated by alternative processing and alternative promoter usage to bind and regulate target genes in a sex-specific manner.


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