Functional characterization of proteins NIP7 and FTSJ3 in ribosomal RNA processing in human cells

Author(s)

Luis Gustavo Morello

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Biologia
• Defense date: 2012-06-20

Examining board members

Nilson Ivo Tonin Zanchin; Marcelo Damario Gomes; Ana Paula Ulian de Araujo; José Andrés Yunes; Celso Eduardo Benedetti

• Advisor: Nilson Ivo Tonin Zanchin

Abstract

Previous studies from our laboratory have demonstrated the interaction between the SBDS and NIP7 human proteins. SBDS play a role in ribosome biogenesis and its deficiency is associated to the Shwachman-Bodian-Diamond syndrome. NIP7 is a conserved protein and has already been characterized in yeast, where it participates in the 60S ribosomal subunit formation. In this work, we investigated the role of NIP7 in ribosome biogenesis in human cells. NIP7 knockdown caused pre-rRNA processing defects associated to the 18S rRNA maturation, leading to deficiency in 40S ribosomal subunit synthesis. The divergence between NIP7 function in yeast and human cells is further supported by the fact that human NIP7 does not complement yeast deficient in Nip7p. In addition, a two-hybrid screen using human NIP7 as bait revealed interaction partners different from those reported for yeast Nip7p. FTSJ3 was isolated as one of the most frequent human NIP7-interacting candidates. FTSJ3 is a putative ortholog of yeast Spb1p, which has been implicated in 60S ribosomal subunit synthesis. The association between FTSJ3 and NIP7 was showed by pull-down and immunoprecipitation assays as an RNA-dependent interaction. Nucleolar colocalization and co-sedimentation on a sucrose gradiente fractionation corroborate this association. Furthermore, RNAi-mediated knockdown revealed that depletion of FTSJ3 causes pre-rRNA processing defects in the pathway leading to 18S rRNA maturation, the same pathway affected by NIP7 downregulation. In additon, proteomic characterization of FTSJ3- and NIP7- containing complexes showed that these proteins copurify pre-ribosomal complexes. A comparison of the set of Spb1p-interacting proteins with the proteins identified in the pulldown with FLAG-FTSJ3 showed that they share only one ortholog which, incredibly, is Nip7/NIP7. These observations revealed significant differences in the function of these factors during the synthesis of ribosomes in yeast and human cells, adding NIP7 and FTSJ3 to the growing list of factors with different functions in yeast and human rRNA processing pathways (AU)