THE IMPACT OF TRANSLATIONAL FIDELITY ON HUMAN HEALTH

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2018

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Abstract

Ribosomopathies are a class of diseases resulting from mutations in genes encoding ribosomal proteins and ribosome biogenesis factors. Pleiotropic clinical presentations of different ribosomopathies has been taken as evidence of specialized ribosomes. Alternatively, gene dosage effects have been proposed to account for the observed differences. A yeast genetics approach was used to address this issue. Due to a historical gene duplication event, S. cerevisiae cells harbor two ohnologs for most ribosomal proteins. Deletion of one yeast ribosomal protein ohnolog was used to mimic haploinsufficiency in diploid cells (i.e. pseudo-haploinsufficient yeast). Further, insertion of a second copy of the undeleted ohnolog into the locus of the deleted ohnolog enabled separation of effects due to gene dosage from those due to ribosomal protein ohnolog identity. We found that significant changes in translational fidelity in the ribosomal protein ohnolog deletion strains were corrected by ohnolog duplication. Changes in gene dosage, particularly as they may affect the abundance of an enzyme as central as the ribosome, can impart stress through far reaching effects on cellular metabolism. Thus, as an orthogonal approach, we also examined the stress profiles of cells harboring the cbf5-D95A allele (model of X-linked Dyskeratosis Congenita) and the rps23a-R69K allele (model of MacInnes Syndrome). RNA-seq analysis revealed increased expression of proteins involved in response to oxidative stress in cbf5-D95A cells. Growth curve analysis revealed a longer plateau of the cbf5-D95A cells upon reaching stationary phase, suggestive of a pre-adaptive stress response. Decreased ROS abundance, tunicamycin resistance and increased basal levels of HAC1 mRNA in the mutant cells support this hypothesis. Similar results were observed with regard to the ohnolog deletion strains. Taken as a whole, these data support the gene dosage model as opposed to the specialized ribosome hypothesis with the caveat that this conclusion is limited to yeast cells growing in rich medium.

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