Developmentally Regulated Novel Non-coding Anti-sense Regulators of mRNA Translation in Trypanosoma brucei
K. Shanmugha Rajan,
Tirza Doniger,
Smadar Cohen-Chalamish,
Praveenkumar Rengaraj,
Beathrice Galili,
Saurav Aryal,
Ron Unger,
Christian Tschudi,
Shulamit Michaeli
Affiliations
K. Shanmugha Rajan
The Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences and Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology Institute, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel
Tirza Doniger
The Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences and Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology Institute, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel
Smadar Cohen-Chalamish
The Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences and Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology Institute, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel
Praveenkumar Rengaraj
The Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences and Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology Institute, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel
Beathrice Galili
The Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences and Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology Institute, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel
Saurav Aryal
The Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences and Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology Institute, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel
Ron Unger
The Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences and Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology Institute, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel
Christian Tschudi
Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT 06536, USA
Shulamit Michaeli
The Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences and Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology Institute, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel; Corresponding author
Summary: The parasite Trypanosoma brucei is the causative agent of sleeping sickness and cycles between insect and mammalian hosts. The parasite appears to lack conventional transcriptional regulation of protein coding genes, and mRNAs are processed from polycistronic transcripts by the concerted action of trans-splicing and polyadenylation. Regulation of mRNA function is mediated mainly by RNA binding proteins affecting mRNA stability and translation. In this study, we describe the identification of 62 non-coding (nc) RNAs that are developmentally regulated and/or respond to stress. We characterized two novel anti-sense RNA regulators (TBsRNA-33 and 37) that originate from the rRNA loci, associate with ribosomes and polyribosomes, and interact in vivo with distinct mRNA species to regulate translation. Thus, this study suggests for the first-time anti-sense RNA regulators as an additional layer for controlling gene expression in these parasites.
