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Engineering Artificial Factors to Specifically Manipulate Alternative Splicing in Human Cells
Published on: April 26, 2017
CPSF6 regulates alternative polyadenylation and proliferation of cancer cells through phase separation
Susu Liu1, Runze Wu1, Liutao Chen1
1State Key Laboratory for Biocontrol, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Functional Genes, Department of Biochemistry, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, P.R. China.
Abstract:
Cancer cells usually exhibit shortened 3' untranslated regions (UTRs) due to alternative polyadenylation (APA) to promote cell proliferation and migration. Upregulated CPSF6 leads to a systematic prolongation of 3' UTRs, but CPSF6 expression in tumors is typically higher than that in healthy tissues. This contradictory observation suggests that it is necessary to investigate the underlying mechanism by which CPSF6 regulates APA switching in cancer. Here, we find that CPSF6 can undergo liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), and elevated LLPS is associated with the preferential usage of the distal poly(A) sites. CLK2, a kinase upregulated in cancer cells, destructs CPSF6 LLPS by phosphorylating its arginine/serine-like domain. The reduction of CPSF6 LLPS can lead to a shortened 3' UTR of cell-cycle-related genes and accelerate cell proliferation. These results suggest that CPSF6 LLPS, rather than its expression level, may be responsible for APA regulation in cancer cells.
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