Biology subjects

Biryukova, I.

Publications and source records attributed to Biryukova, I..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2021

MapToCleave: high-throughput profiling of microRNA biogenesis in living cells

Previous large-scale studies have uncovered many features that determine the processing of microRNA (miRNA) precursors, however, they have been conducted in vitro. Here we introduce MapToCleave, a new method to simultaneously profile processing of thousands of distinct RNA structures in living cells. Our new in cell method captures essentially all the biogenesis features that have been discovered through near two decades of in vitro studies - providing support for both approaches. We find that miRNA precursors with a stable lower basal stem are more efficiently processed and also have higher expression in vivo in tissues from twenty animal species. We systematically compare the importance of known and novel sequence and structural features and test biogenesis of miRNA precursors from ten animal and plant species in human cells. Lastly, we provide evidence that the GHG motif better predicts processing when defined as a structure rather than sequence motif, consistent with recent cryo-EM studies. In summary, we apply a new screening assay in living cells to reveal the importance of lower basal stem stability for miRNA processing and in vivo expression.

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Nuclear gene proximity and protein interactions shape transcript covariances in mammalian single cells

Single-cell RNA sequencing studies into gene co-expression patterns could yield important new regulatory and functional insights, but have so far been limited by the confounding effects of cell differentiation and the cell cycle. We apply a tailored experimental design that eliminates these confounders, and report >80,000 intrinsically covarying gene pairs in mouse embryonic stem cells. These covariances form a network with biological properties, outlining known and novel gene interactions. We provide the first evidence that miRNAs naturally induce transcriptome-wide covariances, and compare the relative importance of nuclear organization, transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation in defining covariances. We find that nuclear organization has the greatest impact, and that genes encoding for physically interacting proteins specifically tend to covary, suggesting importance for protein complex stoichiometry. Our results lend support to the concept of post-transcriptional RNA operons, but we further present evidence that nuclear proximity of genes on the same or even distinct chromosomes also provides substantial functional regulation in mammalian single cells.

systems biology↗