GSE134865
Transcriptome-wide analysis of RNA structure in MCF7 cells with and without inhibition of eIF4A by hippuristanol treatment
Translational dysregulation is an emerging hallmark of cancer, and increased activity of the mRNA helicase eIF4A is associated with poor survival in malignancies. This is believed to be due to the unwinding of secondary structures within the 5'UTRs of oncogenic mRNAs, with studies showing that in general eIF4A-dependent mRNAs have longer 5'UTRs with more stable secondary structures, yet our ability to predict eIF4A-dependency from 5'UTR properties alone remains poor. We therefore used Structure-seq 2 to measure transcriptome-wide changes in RNA structure in MCF7 cells, following eIF4A inhibition with hippuristanol. This technique measures the single-strandedness of RNA by specific and rapid methylation of single-stranded adenosines and cytosines with Dimethyl Sulphate (DMS). When paired with polysome profiling data to identify which mRNAs are most translationally repressed, we can identify the structural determinants of eIF4A-dependency. Upon eIF4A inhibition, both 5'UTRs and CDSs become generally more structured, while overall this was not observed for 3'UTRs. This was most pronounced in CDSs, supporting recent findings that the ribosome sculpts RNA structure in this region. 5'UTRs are generally more structured at their 5' ends and highly translated mRNAs are less structured just upstream of the CDS. Following eIF4A inhibition, the 5'UTR is remodelled. eIF4A-dependent mRNAs have greater localised gains of structure. The degree of these structural changes is strongly correlated with 5'UTR length, explaining why eIF4A-dependent mRNAs have longer 5'UTRs. Crucially, in eIF4A-dependent mRNAs these highly-structured elements are located predominantly at the 3' end of the 5'UTR, suggesting that increased structure just upstream of the CDS is most inhibitory to translation following eIF4A inhibition and is a key determinant of eIF4A-dependency. Overall design: MCF7 cells were treated with and without dimethyl sulphate (DMS) following treatment with and without hippuristanol in triplicate. Poly(A) RNA was extracted and underwent Structure-seq 2 library preparation