Mrna Structure Dynamics Identifies the Embryonic RNA Regulome
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bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/274290; this version posted March 1, 2018. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. mRNA structure dynamics identifies the embryonic RNA regulome Jean-Denis Beaudoin1,*,‡, Eva Maria Novoa2,3,4,5,*, Charles E Vejnar1, Valeria Yartseva1, Carter Takacs1, Manolis Kellis2,3 and Antonio J Giraldez1,6,‡ RNA folding plays a crucial role in RNA function. However, our knowledge of the global structure of the transcriptome is limited to steady-state conditions, hindering our understanding of how RNA structure dynamics influences gene function. Here, we have characterized mRNA structure dynamics during zebrafish development. We observe that on a global level, translation guides structure rather than structure guiding translation. We detect a decrease in structure in translated regions, and we identify the ribosome as a major remodeler of RNA structure in vivo. In contrast, we find that 3’-UTRs form highly folded structures in vivo, which can affect gene expression by modulating miRNA activity. Furthermore, we find that dynamic 3’-UTR structures encode RNA decay elements, including regulatory elements in nanog and cyclin A1, key maternal factors orchestrating the maternal-to-zygotic transition. These results reveal a central role of RNA structure dynamics in gene regulatory programs. Introduction Previous studies have focused on the global analysis of RNA structures in cells at RNA carries out a broad range of functions,1 and steady-state. However, in an organism, critical RNA structure has emerged as a fundamental developmental and metabolic decisions are often regulatory mechanism, modulating various post- made when cells transition between cellular transcriptional events such as splicing2, states. Consequently, to understand the subcellular localization3, translation4,5 and decay6. relationship between RNA structure, regulation, RNA probing reagents combined with high- and function in vivo, it is paramount to determine throughput sequencing7 allow the interrogation of how RNA structures change in dynamic cellular RNA structure in a transcriptome-wide manner in environments. During the maternal-to-zygotic vitro and in vivo8,9. These approaches have transition (MZT) in animals, the embryo is initially identified common features in RNA structures and transcriptionally silent, and gene expression is their regulation at steady-state10-14, suggesting primarily orchestrated by post-transcriptional that RNAs tend to be unfolded in vivo13,15. regulation of maternally-deposited mRNA However, the cellular factors that remodel RNA translation and decay25,26. These regulatory folding in vivo remain unknown. pathways are central to embryogenesis, controlling mRNA translation, the cell cycle, and While the ribosome possesses a the activation of the zygotic genome25,27. Among 16 constitutive mRNA helicase activity , stable RNA the set of maternally-deposited mRNAs, the structures found within coding regions can reduce transcription factors nanog, oct4, and sox19b are 17,18 the rate of translation in vitro . Similarly, the highly translated. Their combined function is intrinsic structure adopted by coding regions required to activate a large fraction of the zygotic instruct the rate of translation in bacteria, where program28,29. One of the first zygotically sequences forming stable structures show transcribed RNAs is the microRNA miR-43028,30, 19 reduced translation in vivo . In addition, stable which causes translation repression, structures located in 5’UTR or surrounding the deadenylation and clearance of hundreds of AUG initiation codon repress translation and maternal mRNAs during the MZT31-33. Thus, the modulate protein output in bacteria and MZT provides an ideal system to understand how 20-23 eukaryotes . However, in plant and yeast, the entire cellular population of RNA structures is highly structured mRNA in vitro correlated with remodeled across changing cellular states, and 9,24 higher ribosome density and protein output , how these changes may impact gene regulation. yet, other studies found that RNA structure in Here, we analyze mRNA structural dynamics yeast were not correlated with translation during zebrafish embryogenesis to investigate the 13 efficiency . 1Department of Genetics, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA 2Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA 3The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139; USA 4Department of Neuroscience; Garvan Institute of Medical Research Darlinghurst NSW 2010; Australia 5School of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052; Australia 6Yale Stem Cell Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06520; USA *Co-first authors ‡To whom correspondence should be addressed e-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] phone: +1 203-785-5423; fax: +1 203-785-4415 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/274290; this version posted March 1, 2018. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. relationship between RNA structure and gene analysis revealed global changes in mRNA regulation in vivo. structure during the MZT (Extended Data Fig. 1i- k). Changes in translation, analyzed by ribosome Results footprinting34, were correlated with global mRNA accessibility changes in coding sequences (CDS) Dynamic structure reflects translation and 5’-UTRs, but not in 3’-UTRs (Fig. 1b and changes Extended Data Fig. 1l). We analyzed differentially structured regions over development as 100-nt We analyzed the structure of the zebrafish sliding windows (Fig. 1c) and observed that transcriptome during the MZT using DMS-seq (Fig mRNAs with decreasing rates of translation 1a), which we validated as an accurate readout of between 2 and 6 hours post-fertilization (hpf) in vivo RNA structure (Extended Data Fig. 1). Our increase in structure (orange), and those whose Figure 1. Relationship between mRNA structure and translation during the MZT. a, Schematic view of the profound transcriptomic remodeling that occurs during the maternal-to-zygotic transition. After a transcriptionally silent period (gray), the maternal program (pink) transitions to a zygotic program (blue). b, Correlation between the per-transcript changes in translation efficiency (6-2 hpf) and CDS accessibility (6/2 hpf). c, Methodology used to identify local RNA structure changes between conditions. Differentially structured (DS) sliding windows are defined as those that are significantly changing (P<0.05) based on the Kolmogorov- Smirnov test, and show an increase (>1.1) or decrease (<0.9) in their Gini index ratio. d, In the left panel, structure changes of each 100-nt window (Gini ratio 6/2 hpf) along each transcript (total of 1,273) are shown. Transcripts are ranked by their changes in translation efficiency during the MZT (6-2 hpf). Each transcript region (5’-UTR, CDS, 3’-UTR) has been normalized by its length. In the right panel, cumulative distributions of differentially structured windows for transcripts that increase (top 20%, upper panel) and decrease (bottom 20%, lower panel) translation are shown. e, Cumulative distribution of global CDS accessibilities in vivo, showing that highly translated mRNAs exhibit increased CDS accessibility in vivo at 2 hpf, a stage at which the rate of translation spans ~10,000-fold between highly and poorly translated mRNAs. Transcripts have been binned into quintiles according to their translation efficiency. P-value was computed using a one-sided Mann-Whitney U test. 2 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/274290; this version posted March 1, 2018. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. translation increases become less structured 2a, lower panel). To distinguish between these (turquoise) (Fig. 1d). These results indicate that scenarios, we compared the accessibility of translation and mRNA structure are anti- transcripts analyzed in vitro, binned by their correlated in vivo, in contrast to previous translation efficiency in vivo (see Methods) (Fig. reports9,13,24,35. Moreover, we compared the 2b and Extended Data Fig. 2a). We found that accessibilities of the different mRNA regions (5’- lowly and highly translated mRNAs show similar UTR, CDS and 3’-UTR) and found that highly CDS accessibility in vitro, distinct from in vivo translated mRNAs display a greater accessibility (Fig. 2b, c and Extended Data Fig. 2a-c), in their CDS (P=2.3e-118) and, to a lesser extent, suggesting that the differences in mRNA in their 5’-UTRs (P=1.9e-11) (Fig. 1e and accessibility between highly and lowly translated Extended Data Fig. 2a). mRNAs are not intrinsic to the nucleotide sequence. While very stable structures in the 5’- Pre-existing RNA structure differences UTR clearly disrupt translation20,22,23, we observed might determine mRNA translation, where less no correlation between translation and structure of structured mRNAs would be more accessible and, 5’-UTRs or the AUG initiation codons in vitro (Fig. consequently, translated more effectively (Fig. 2a, 2d, e and Extended Data Fig. 2d-g). Thus, on a upper panel). Alternatively,