Transfer RNA-derived fragments target and regulate ribosome-associated aminoacyl-transfer RNA synthetases

Anna M Mleczko; Piotr Celichowski; Kamilla Bąkowska-Żywicka

doi:10.1016/j.bbagrm.2018.06.001

Transfer RNA-derived fragments target and regulate ribosome-associated aminoacyl-transfer RNA synthetases

Biochim Biophys Acta Gene Regul Mech. 2018 Jun 6:S1874-9399(17)30380-2. doi: 10.1016/j.bbagrm.2018.06.001. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Anna M Mleczko¹, Piotr Celichowski¹, Kamilla Bąkowska-Żywicka²

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry Polish Academy of Sciences, Noskowskiego St. 12/14, 61-704 Poznan, Poland.
² Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry Polish Academy of Sciences, Noskowskiego St. 12/14, 61-704 Poznan, Poland. Electronic address: bakowska@ibch.poznan.pl.

PMID: 29883755
DOI: 10.1016/j.bbagrm.2018.06.001

Abstract

Ribosome-associated noncoding (ranc) RNAs are a novel class of short regulatory RNAs with functions and origins that have not been well studied. In this present study, we functionally characterized the molecular activity of Saccharomyces cerevisiae transfer RNA (tRNA)-derived fragments (tRFs) during protein biosynthesis. Our results indicate ribosome-associated tRFs derived from both 5' (ranc-5'-tRFs) and 3'-part of tRNAs (ranc-3'-tRFs) have regulatory roles during translation. We demonstrated five 3'-tRFs and one 5'-tRF associate with a small ribosomal subunit and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aa-RSs) in yeast. Furthermore, we discovered that four yeast aa-RSs interact directly with yeast ribosomes. tRFs interactions with ribosome-associated aa-RSs correlate with impaired efficiency of tRNA aminoacylation.

Keywords: Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase; Regulation of translation; Ribosome; Ribosome-associated ncRNA; tRNA-derived fragments.