Grünebast Janne, Lorenzen Stephan, Brinker Christine, Bea Annika, Clos Joachim
Leishmania Genetics Group, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany.
Department of Infection Epidemiology, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany.
Microbiol Spectr. 2025 Jul;13(7):e0056625. doi: 10.1128/spectrum.00566-25. Epub 2025 Jun 9.
UNLABELLED: Transcription in has long been considered constitutive, as shown by nuclear run-on analyses and northern blots, with gene expression primarily regulated post-transcriptionally. Using precision nuclear run-on sequencing (PRO-seq), we investigated active transcription in axenically grown insect stages, promastigotes, and mammalian stages, amastigotes, of . PRO-seq provides a high-resolution view of nascent RNA synthesis, allowing us to examine RNA synthesis rates and transcription initiation and termination sites genome-wide. Our results show uniform transcription across all chromosomes in all analyzed stages of the parasite's life cycle. Furthermore, we observed no significant differences in transcription levels of individual polycistronic transcription units (PTUs) between promastigotes and amastigotes during differentiation after chemical or temperature/pH induction, demonstrating that environmental conditions do not influence transcription in . Additionally, transcription was confirmed to be strand-specific within PTUs, with initiation and termination occurring at strand switch regions. We successfully identified sites of transcription initiation and termination, which can be used for future integration with epigenetic data. These findings reinforce that transcription in is constitutive and stage-independent, excluding a role in gene expression regulation. IMPORTANCE: Our data unequivocally show that life cycle stage-dependent gene expression in , the parasite responsible for the lethal Kala-Azar disease, does not involve regulated RNA synthesis. We used a genome-wide analysis of RNA synthesis of cultivated parasites of three different differentiation forms to measure nascent RNA synthesis and found no significant changes. Together with earlier data, this implies mechanisms of gene expression control that set apart from its human and animal hosts.
未标记:长期以来,通过细胞核连续转录分析和Northern印迹法表明,某寄生虫的转录一直被认为是组成型的,基因表达主要在转录后受到调控。我们使用精确细胞核连续转录测序(PRO-seq)技术,研究了该寄生虫在无菌培养的昆虫阶段(前鞭毛体)和哺乳动物阶段(无鞭毛体)的活跃转录情况。PRO-seq提供了新生RNA合成的高分辨率视图,使我们能够在全基因组范围内检查RNA合成速率以及转录起始和终止位点。我们的结果表明,在寄生虫生命周期的所有分析阶段,所有染色体上的转录都是均匀的。此外,我们观察到在化学或温度/ pH诱导后的分化过程中,前鞭毛体和无鞭毛体之间单个多顺反子转录单元(PTU)的转录水平没有显著差异,这表明环境条件不会影响该寄生虫的转录。此外,已证实转录在PTU内具有链特异性,起始和终止发生在链切换区域。我们成功鉴定了转录起始和终止位点,可用于未来与表观遗传数据的整合。这些发现强化了该寄生虫的转录是组成型且与阶段无关的观点,排除了其在基因表达调控中的作用。 重要性:我们的数据明确表明,导致致命黑热病的寄生虫在生命周期阶段依赖性基因表达中不涉及调控的RNA合成。我们对三种不同分化形式的培养寄生虫的RNA合成进行了全基因组分析,以测量新生RNA合成,未发现显著变化。结合早期数据,这意味着该寄生虫具有使其区别于人类和动物宿主的基因表达控制机制。
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