Abstract
Conserved translin–TRAX complexes, also known as C3POs, have been implicated in many biological processes, but how they function remains unclear. Recently, C3PO was shown to be an endoRNase that promotes RNA interference (RNAi) in animal cells. Here, we show that C3PO does not play a significant role in RNAi in the filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa. Instead, the Neurospora C3PO functions as an RNase that removes the 5′ pre-tRNA fragments after the processing of pre-tRNAs by RNase P. In addition, translin and trax mutants have elevated levels of tRNA and protein translation and are more resistant to a cell death–inducing agent. Finally, we show that C3PO is also involved in tRNA processing in mouse embryonic fibroblast cells. This study identifies the endogenous RNA substrates of C3PO and provides a potential explanation for its roles in apparently diverse biological processes.
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Acknowledgements
We thank H. Yuan and Q. Ye in Y.L.'s lab at U.T. Southwestern Medical Center for technical assistance and Ying Liu and X. Ye in Q.L.'s lab for providing the recombinant Drosophila C3PO and for advice on C3PO purification. This work was supported by grants from the US National Institutes of Health (R01 GM062591 and R01 GM084283 to Y.L., R01GM084010 to Q.L. and R01GM058800 to C.C.M.) and from the Welch Foundation (I-1560 to Y.L. and I-1608 to Q.L.). C.C.M. is supported as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
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L.L. designed, conducted and interpreted experiments. W.G. performed sRNA sequencing and analyses. C.L. prepared RNA from MEFs. C.C.M. and Q.L. interpreted experimental results. Y.L. designed and interpreted experiments and wrote the paper.
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Li, L., Gu, W., Liang, C. et al. The translin–TRAX complex (C3PO) is a ribonuclease in tRNA processing. Nat Struct Mol Biol 19, 824–830 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.2337
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.2337
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