The NORAD lncRNA assembles a topoisomerase complex critical for genome stability.

Nature
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

The human genome contains thousands of long non-coding RNAs, but specific biological functions and biochemical mechanisms have been discovered for only about a dozen. A specific long non-coding RNA-non-coding RNA activated by DNA damage (NORAD)-has recently been shown to be required for maintaining genomic stability, but its molecular mechanism is unknown. Here we combine RNA antisense purification and quantitative mass spectrometry to identify proteins that directly interact with NORAD in living cells. We show that NORAD interacts with proteins involved in DNA replication and repair in steady-state cells and localizes to the nucleus upon stimulation with replication stress or DNA damage. In particular, NORAD interacts with RBMX, a component of the DNA-damage response, and contains the strongest RBMX-binding site in the transcriptome. We demonstrate that NORAD controls the ability of RBMX to assemble a ribonucleoprotein complex-which we term NORAD-activated ribonucleoprotein complex 1 (NARC1)-that contains the known suppressors of genomic instability topoisomerase I (TOP1), ALYREF and the PRPF19-CDC5L complex. Cells depleted for NORAD or RBMX display an increased frequency of chromosome segregation defects, reduced replication-fork velocity and altered cell-cycle progression-which represent phenotypes that are mechanistically linked to TOP1 and PRPF19-CDC5L function. Expression of NORAD in trans can rescue defects caused by NORAD depletion, but rescue is significantly impaired when the RBMX-binding site in NORAD is deleted. Our results demonstrate that the interaction between NORAD and RBMX is important for NORAD function, and that NORAD is required for the assembly of the previously unknown topoisomerase complex NARC1, which contributes to maintaining genomic stability. In addition, we uncover a previously unknown function for long non-coding RNAs in modulating the ability of an RNA-binding protein to assemble a higher-order ribonucleoprotein complex.

Year of Publication
2018
Journal
Nature
Volume
561
Issue
7721
Pages
132-136
Date Published
2018 09
ISSN
1476-4687
DOI
10.1038/s41586-018-0453-z
PubMed ID
30150775
Links
Grant list
DP5 OD012190 / OD / NIH HHS / United States
U01 DA040612 / DA / NIDA NIH HHS / United States
U01 HL130007 / HL / NHLBI NIH HHS / United States
Additional Materials