A New Insight into MYC Action: Control of RNA Polymerase II Methylation and Transcription Termination

Author:

Scagnoli Fiorella1,Palma Alessandro2ORCID,Favia Annarita1,Scuoppo Claudio3,Illi Barbara1,Nasi Sergio1

Affiliation:

1. IBPM—CNR, Biology and Biotechnology Department, Sapienza University, 00185 Rome, Italy

2. Translational Cytogenomics Research Unit, Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, IRCCS, 00146 Rome, Italy

3. Institute for Cancer Genetics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA

Abstract

MYC oncoprotein deregulation is a common catastrophic event in human cancer and limiting its activity restrains tumor development and maintenance, as clearly shown via Omomyc, an MYC-interfering 90 amino acid mini-protein. MYC is a multifunctional transcription factor that regulates many aspects of transcription by RNA polymerase II (RNAPII), such as transcription activation, pause release, and elongation. MYC directly associates with Protein Arginine Methyltransferase 5 (PRMT5), a protein that methylates a variety of targets, including RNAPII at the arginine residue R1810 (R1810me2s), crucial for proper transcription termination and splicing of transcripts. Therefore, we asked whether MYC controls termination as well, by affecting R1810me2S. We show that MYC overexpression strongly increases R1810me2s, while Omomyc, an MYC shRNA, or a PRMT5 inhibitor and siRNA counteract this phenomenon. Omomyc also impairs Serine 2 phosphorylation in the RNAPII carboxyterminal domain, a modification that sustains transcription elongation. ChIP-seq experiments show that Omomyc replaces MYC and reshapes RNAPII distribution, increasing occupancy at promoter and termination sites. It is unclear how this may affect gene expression. Transcriptomic analysis shows that transcripts pivotal to key signaling pathways are both up- or down-regulated by Omomyc, whereas genes directly controlled by MYC and belonging to a specific signature are strongly down-regulated. Overall, our data point to an MYC/PRMT5/RNAPII axis that controls termination via RNAPII symmetrical dimethylation and contributes to rewiring the expression of genes altered by MYC overexpression in cancer cells. It remains to be clarified which role this may have in tumor development.

Funder

AIRC IG

Ministero Università e Ricerca and CNR

Publisher

MDPI AG

Subject

General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,Medicine (miscellaneous)

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