An Integrative Model For Alternative Polyadenylation, Intmap, Delineates Mtor-Modulated Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Response

Abstract

3′-untranslated regions (UTRs) can vary through the use of alternative polyadenylation sites during pre-mRNA processing. Multiple publically available pipelines combining high profiling technologies and bioinformatics tools have been developed to catalog changes in 3′-UTR lengths. In our recent RNA-seq experiments using cells with hyper-activated mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), we found that cellular mTOR activation leads to transcriptome-wide alternative polyadenylation (APA), resulting in the activation of multiple cellular pathways. Here, we developed a novel bioinformatics algorithm, IntMAP, which integrates RNA-Seq and PolyA Site (PAS)-Seq data for a comprehensive characterization of APA events. By applying IntMAP to the datasets from cells with hyper-activated mTOR, we identified novel APA events that could otherwise not be identified by either profiling method alone. Several transcription factors including Cebpg (CCAAT/enhancer binding protein gamma) were among the newly discovered APA transcripts, indicating that diverse transcriptional networks may be regulated by mTOR-coordinated APA. The prevention of APA in Cebpg using the CRISPR/cas9-mediated genome editing tool showed that mTOR-driven 3′-UTR shortening in Cebpg is critical in protecting cells from endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. Taken together, we present IntMAP as a new bioinformatics algorithm for APA analysis by which we expand our understanding of the physiological role of mTOR-coordinated APA events to ER stress response. IntMAP toolbox is available at http://compbio.cs.umn.edu/IntMAP/.

Publication Date

7-6-2018

Publication Title

Nucleic Acids Research

Volume

46

Issue

12

Number of Pages

5996-6008

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gky340

Socpus ID

85050867767 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85050867767

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