Cao Kai-Yue, Yan Tong-Meng, Zhang Ji-Zhou, Chan Ting-Fung, Li Jie, Li Chong, Lai-Han Leung Elaine, Gao Jin, Zhang Bao-Xian, Jiang Zhi-Hong
State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, Macau University of Science and Technology, Avenida Wai Long, Taipa, Macau SAR, China.
State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, School of Life Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Mol Ther Nucleic Acids. 2022 Jan 3;27:718-732. doi: 10.1016/j.omtn.2021.12.037. eCollection 2022 Mar 8.
Drug discovery from plants usually focuses on small molecules rather than such biological macromolecules as RNAs. Although plant transfer RNA (tRNA)-derived fragment (tRF) has been associated with the developmental and defense mechanisms in plants, its regulatory role in mammals remains unclear. By employing a novel reverse small interfering RNA (siRNA) screening strategy, we show that a tRF mimic (antisense derived from the 5' end of tRNA of Chinese yew) exhibits comparable anti-cancer activity with that of taxol on ovarian cancer A2780 cells, with a 16-fold lower dosage than that of taxol. A dual-luciferase reporter assay revealed that tRF-T11 directly targets the 3' UTR of oncogene mRNA. Furthermore, an Argonaute-RNA immunoprecipitation (AGO-RIP) assay demonstrated that tRF-T11 can interact with AGO2 to suppress via an RNAi pathway. This study uncovers a new role of plant-derived tRFs in regulating endogenous genes. This holds great promise for exploiting novel RNA drugs derived from nature and sheds light on the discovery of unknown molecular targets of therapeutics.
从植物中发现药物通常侧重于小分子,而非RNA等生物大分子。尽管植物转运RNA(tRNA)衍生片段(tRF)已与植物的发育和防御机制相关联,但其在哺乳动物中的调节作用仍不清楚。通过采用一种新型的反向小干扰RNA(siRNA)筛选策略,我们发现一种tRF模拟物(来自中国红豆杉tRNA 5'端的反义序列)对卵巢癌A2780细胞具有与紫杉醇相当的抗癌活性,其剂量比紫杉醇低16倍。双荧光素酶报告基因检测显示,tRF-T11直接靶向癌基因mRNA的3'非翻译区。此外,AGO-RNA免疫沉淀(AGO-RIP)检测表明,tRF-T11可通过RNA干扰途径与AGO2相互作用以发挥抑制作用。本研究揭示了植物来源的tRF在调节内源性基因方面的新作用。这为开发源自天然的新型RNA药物带来了巨大希望,并为发现未知的治疗分子靶点提供了线索。