Abstract
The RNA-binding protein PURA has been implicated in the rare, monogenetic, neurodevelopmental disorder PURA Syndrome. PURA binds both DNA and RNA and has been associated with various cellular functions. Only little is known about its main cellular roles and the molecular pathways affected upon PURA depletion. Here, we show that PURA is predominantly located in the cytoplasm, where it binds to thousands of mRNAs. Many of these transcripts change abundance in response to PURA depletion. The encoded proteins suggest a role for PURA in immune responses, mitochondrial function, autophagy and processing (P)-body activity. Intriguingly, reduced PURA levels decrease the expression of the integral P-body components LSM14A and DDX6 and strongly affect P-body formation in human cells. Furthermore, PURA knockdown results in stabilization of P-body-enriched transcripts, whereas other mRNAs decrease. Hence, reduced PURA levels, as reported in patients with PURA Syndrome, influence the formation and composition of this phase-separated RNA processing machinery. Our study proposes PURA Syndrome as a new model to study the tight connection between P-body-associated RNA regulation and neurodevelopmental disorders.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
↵* Shared first authors.
The order of the manuscript has been changed to improve legibility, validation experiments for the in-house PURA antibody have been added and summarized in Supplementary Figure S1, proteomics data have been re-evaluated, and further evidence is provided for our understanding of the disappearance of P-bodies upon PURA knock-down.
https://github.com/ZarnackGroup/Publications/blob/main/Molitor_et_al_2022/
