Department of Biochemistry University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center 5323 Harry Hines Boulevard Dallas, TX 75390-9152.
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Baltimore, MD 21205.
Cell. 2013 Nov 21;155(5):1049-1060. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.10.033.
The low-complexity (LC) domains of the products of the fused in sarcoma (FUS), Ewings sarcoma (EWS), and TAF15 genes are translocated onto a variety of different DNA-binding domains and thereby assist in driving the formation of cancerous cells. In the context of the translocated fusion proteins, these LC sequences function as transcriptional activation domains. Here, we show that polymeric fibers formed from these LC domains directly bind the C-terminal domain (CTD) of RNA polymerase II in a manner reversible by phosphorylation of the iterated, heptad repeats of the CTD. Mutational analysis indicates that the degree of binding between the CTD and the LC domain polymers correlates with the strength of transcriptional activation. These studies offer a simple means of conceptualizing how RNA polymerase II is recruited to active genes in its unphosphorylated state and released for elongation following phosphorylation of the CTD.
融合肉瘤(FUS)、尤因肉瘤(EWS)和 TAF15 基因产物的低复杂度(LC)结构域易位到多种不同的 DNA 结合结构域,从而有助于驱动癌细胞的形成。在易位融合蛋白的背景下,这些 LC 序列作为转录激活结构域发挥作用。在这里,我们表明这些 LC 结构域形成的聚合纤维以可被 CTD 重复七肽中磷酸化逆转的方式直接结合 RNA 聚合酶 II 的 C 末端结构域(CTD)。突变分析表明,CTD 和 LC 结构域聚合物之间的结合程度与转录激活的强度相关。这些研究为理解 RNA 聚合酶 II 在未磷酸化状态下如何被募集到活性基因并在 CTD 磷酸化后释放以进行延伸提供了一种简单的概念化方法。