A DNA-binding protein that regulates several genes also attaches to RNA, revealing another way in which the protein acts as a 'master weaver' of the genome.
Félix Recillas-Targa of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City, Danny Reinberg of New York University's Langone Medical Center and their colleagues discovered a region in the DNA-binding protein CTCF that binds to the RNA molecule Wrap53. This RNA regulates the tumour suppressor p53, a protein involved in DNA repair.
When the team mutated CTCF in human cells, CTCF could not bind to Wrap53 RNA and cells failed to trigger responses to damaged DNA, showing that CTCF controls p53 by binding to Wrap53. In a genome-wide screen, the team found CTCF attached to some 17,000 other RNAs.
CTCF could regulate many genes in this way, and binding to RNA could allow the protein to form short chains, which might influence how it creates loops in protein–DNA structures called chromatin, the authors suggest.
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DNA regulator acts on RNA too. Nature 508, 152–153 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/508152d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/508152d
