RNA-binding proteins

TET2 promotes the conversion of 5-methylcytosine to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine on tRNAs and affects the processing or stability of different classes of tRNA fragments.

The HIV-1 RNA-binding protein rev facilitates nuclear export of viral RNA. Here, the authors use native mass spectrometry to study the interactions between rev-derived peptides and rev response elements of HIV-1 RNA, providing mechanistic insights into rev recognition and recruitment.

So far only a few compounds have been reported as splicing modulators. Here, the authors combine high-throughput screening, chemical synthesis, NMR, X-ray crystallography with functional studies and develop phenothiazines as inhibitors for the U2AF Homology Motif (UHM) domains of proteins that regulate splicing and show that they inhibit early spliceosome assembly on pre-mRNA substrates in vitro.

Human ADAR proteins are responsible for RNA editing, conversion of adenosine to inosine in double-stranded RNA. Here the authors report a previously unknown zinc ion-binding site in the catalytic domain of human ADAR1 using high throughput mutagenesis, biochemical assay and Rosetta-based protein structure modeling.

A protein condensate formed by multivalent interactions between the long non-coding RNA Xist and specific RNA-binding proteins drives the compartmentalization required to perpetuate gene silencing on the inactive X chromosome.