Post-transcriptional of gene expression control following toxic injury and in disease: The role of RNA binding proteins

Speaker: Professor Anne Willis OBE, Director of MRC Toxicology Unit, University of Cambridge

Title: Post-transcriptional of gene expression control following toxic injury and in disease: The role of RNA binding proteins

Host: Sasi Conte

 

Abstract: Following cell stress, post-transcriptional pathways are initiated to orchestrate the response and enable adaptation to either environmental or intracellular perturbation. A key part of this response is mediated by non-canonical, trans-acting regulatory RNA-binding proteins (RBPs), which bind to and control the activity of their cognate RNAs. We have investigated how the RBPome changes following exposure to bulky adduct nucleic acid damage, and show that in response to cytoplasmic RNA damage, RBPs trigger adaptive stress response pathways, which result in cell cycle arrest. Moreover, it is well established that cancer cells also hi-jack such stress response pathways in order proliferate in the unfavourable tumour environment, and through examining changes in the RBPome in tumour cells from patients with malignant mesothelioma, we demonstrate how cells can adapt, and how this can provide an alternative strategy to identify novel anti-cancer therapies.