Abstract
In eukaryotes, antisense transcription can regulate sense transcription by induction of epigenetic modifications. We showed previously that antisense transcription triggers Dicer-independent siRNA (disiRNA) production and disiRNA locus DNA methylation (DLDM) in Neurospora crassa. Here we show that the conserved exonuclease ERI-1 (enhanced RNAi-1) is a critical component in this process. Antisense transcription and ERI-1 binding to target RNAs are necessary and sufficient to trigger DLDM. Convergent transcription causes stalling of RNA polymerase II during transcription, which permits ERI-1 to bind nascent RNAs in the nucleus and recruit a histone methyltransferase complex that catalyzes chromatin modifications. Furthermore, we show that, in the cytoplasm, ERI-1 targets hundreds of transcripts from loci without antisense transcription to regulate RNA stability. Together, our results demonstrate a critical role for transcription kinetic116s in long noncoding RNA-mediated epigenetic modifications and identify ERI-1 as an important regulator of cotranscriptional gene silencing and post-transcriptional RNA metabolism.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 2417-2432 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Genes and Development |
Volume | 30 |
Issue number | 21 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 1 2016 |
Keywords
- Antisense transcription
- DNA methylation
- Gene silencing
- Neurospora
- Small RNA
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Genetics
- Developmental Biology