1. Academic Validation
  2. Mutations in yeast Pcf11, a conserved protein essential for mRNA 3' end processing and transcription termination, elicit the Environmental Stress Response

Mutations in yeast Pcf11, a conserved protein essential for mRNA 3' end processing and transcription termination, elicit the Environmental Stress Response

  • Genetics. 2023 Nov 15:iyad199. doi: 10.1093/genetics/iyad199.
Joel H Graber 1 Derick Hoskinson 2 Huiyun Liu 2 Katarzyna Kaczmarek Michaels 2 Peter S Benson 1 Nathaniel J Maki 1 Christian L Wilson 1 Caleb McGrath 3 Franco Puleo 2 Erika Pearson 2 Jason N Kuehner 3 Claire Moore 2
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine, 04609, United States.
  • 2 Department of Development, Molecular, and Chemical Biology and Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Science, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts 02111, USA, United States.
  • 3 Department of Biology, Emmanuel College, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States.
Abstract

The Pcf11 protein is an essential subunit of the large complex that cleaves and polyadenylates eukaryotic mRNA precursor. It has also been functionally linked to gene-looping, termination of RNA Polymerase II (Pol II) transcripts, and mRNA export. We have examined a poorly characterized but conserved domain (Amino acids 142-225) of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Pcf11 and found that while it is not needed for mRNA 3' end processing or termination downstream of the poly(A) sites of protein-coding genes, its presence improves the interaction with Pol II and the use of transcription terminators near gene promoters. Analysis of genome-wide Pol II occupancy in cells with Pcf11 missing this region, as well as Pcf11 mutated in the Pol II CTD Interacting Domain, indicates that systematic changes in mRNA expression are mediated primarily at the level of transcription. Global expression analysis also shows that a general stress response, involving both activation and suppression of specific gene sets known to be regulated in response to a wide variety of stresses, is induced in the two pcf11 mutants, even though cells are grown in optimal conditions. The mutants also cause an unbalanced expression of cell-wall-related genes that does not activate the Cell Wall Integrity pathway but is associated with strong caffeine sensitivity. Based on these findings, we propose that Pcf11 can modulate the expression level of specific functional groups of genes in ways that do not involve its well-characterized role in mRNA 3' end processing.

Keywords

Pcf11; Transcription termination; attenuation; environmental stress response; mRNA 3’ end processing.

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