2. Academic Validation
  3. Nutrient stress diverts RRN3 from rRNA transcription to alternative polyadenylation of autophagy mRNAs in ovarian cancer

Nutrient stress diverts RRN3 from rRNA transcription to alternative polyadenylation of autophagy mRNAs in ovarian cancer

  • Cell Death Dis. 2025 Nov 21;16(1):849. doi: 10.1038/s41419-025-08142-6.
Jianying Lv 1,  Shuo Wang 1,  Tianxiang Liu 1,  Yi Liu 1,  Yuting Bai 1,  Wei-Ao Qu 1,  Jixuan Ding 1,  Zhiqiang Chen 1,  Yanhua Liu 1,  Yanan Chen 1,  Jia Li 1,  Jian Li 2,  Wei Ding 3,  Yongjun Piao 1,  Rong Xiang 1,  Beilei Zeng 4,  Longlong Wang 5,  Yi Shi 6
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 The School of Medicine, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
  • 2 Department of Urology, Tianjin Union Medical Center, The First affiliated Hospital of Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
  • 3 Department of Gynecological Oncology, Tianjin Central Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Tianjin, China.
  • 4 Department of Oncology, Affiliated Hospital of North Sichuan Medical College, Nanchong, Sichuan, China. [email protected].
  • 5 The School of Medicine, Nankai University, Tianjin, China. [email protected].
  • 6 The School of Medicine, Nankai University, Tianjin, China. [email protected].
PMID: 41271632 DOI: 10.1038/s41419-025-08142-6
Abstract

Stress-induced alternative processing of mRNA is emerging as an essential mechanism to drive almost every hallmark of Cancer. Through a genome-wide screening based on an abnormal transcriptional readthrough event favoring the malignant progression of ovarian carcinoma (OC), we identified novel mRNA processing regulators including RRN3, an essential factor for the transcriptional initiation of rRNA. The long-read RNA Sequencing and PAR-CLIP analyses revealed that RRN3 was involved in the usage of alternative polyadenylation (APA) sites, resulting in the altered stability of autophagy-related mRNAs. More interestingly, we discovered that nutrient-deprivation-induced phosphorylation of RRN3 at serine 199 was sufficient to divert RRN3 out of the nucleolus to the nuclear plasma, where RRN3 regulated the APA of Autophagy mRNAs, such as OPTN, to enhance their stability and eventually promoted Autophagy. Further in vivo experiments showed that nutrient-stress-triggered switch of RRN3 from rRNA transcription to APA regulation was essential for the growth and dissemination of OC in mice.

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