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The role of alternative splicing in plants
Földi, Marek ; Klodová, Božena (advisor) ; Fischer, Lukáš (referee)
Alternative splicing is a mechanism of gene expression regulation that maintains, regulates, and creates genomic diversity and tissue specificity in plants. It involves the differential joining of exons in precursor mRNAs, leading to multiple mRNA isoforms from a single gene. The formation of these isoform variants and their subsequent translation leads to subfunctionalization of proteins, generating diversity in structure and function. Therefore, alternative splicing is often important in various biological processes in plants, such as development, stress response, immunity, and reproduction. Key types of alternative splicing events include intron retention, exon skipping, alternative 5'/3' splice sites, and mutually exclusive exons. Regulation of alternative splicing involves cis-regulatory elements and trans- acting protein factors such as serine/arginine-rich (SR) proteins and heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins (hnRNPs). This thesis aims to summarise the mechanisms and consequences of alternative splicing in plant development, including maturation of male and female gametophytes, meiosis, stress, and cell differentiation. It also describes methodological approaches that allow for a genome-wide study of alternative splicing, including microarrays, RNA-seq, and PCR. A better understanding of...
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Analysis of pre-mRNA alternative splicing products and their importance in breast cancer oncogenesis.
Hojný, Jan ; Kleiblová, Petra (advisor) ; Malík, Radek (referee) ; Boušková, Veronika (referee)
Breast cancer is the most common tumor disease diagnosed in women worldwide. The hereditary character of this disease is observed in 5-10 % of all cases, and it is usually caused by a pathogenic mutation in one of the predisposition genes. Although a variety of pathogenic mutations in the coding sequences of these genes was described, the cause of the disease is still unknown in many familial cases (> 50%). A great number of identified pathogenic mutations were localized in the consensus splicing sites, which results in the formation of aberrant mRNA splicing variants and their damaged protein isoforms. However, little is known about mutations affecting regulatory splicing sites, which can result in the translation of similarly affected mRNAs. In this work, we proposed a method for indirect detection of mutations affecting the natural splicing pattern of any gene of our interest based on multiplex PCR and NGS with high sensitivity. Verification of this method on the BRCA1 model gene revealed the presence of the total of 94 splicing variants in peripheral leucocytes and healthy breast and adjacent fat tissues. This is the most detailed catalogue of physically occurring BRCA1 mRNA variants thus far. The most commonly occurring variants, maintaining open reading frame, were quantified by RT-qPCR which...
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Role of promoter in the regulation of alternative splicing
Kozáková, Eva ; Staněk, David (advisor) ; Půta, František (referee) ; Blažek, Dalibor (referee)
It was shown that 95 % of human multi-exon genes are alternatively spliced and the regulation of alternative splicing is extremely complex. Most pre-mRNA splicing events occur co- transcriptionally and there is increasing body of evidence, that chromatin modifications play an important role in the regulation of alternative splicing. Here we showed that inhibition of histone deacetylases (HDACs) modulates alternative splicing of ~700 genes via induction of histone H4 acetylation and increase of Pol II elongation rate along alternative region. We identified HDAC1 the catalytic activity of which is responsible for changes in alternative splicing. Then, we analyzed whether acetylhistone binding protein Brd2 regulates alternative splicing and showed that Brd2 occupies promoter regions of targeted genes and controls alternative splicing of ~300 genes. Later we showed that knockdown of histone acetyltransferase p300 promotes inclusion of the alternative fibronectin (FN1) EDB exon. p300 associates with CRE sites in the promoter via the CREB transcription factor. We created mini-gene reporters driven by an artificial promoter containing CRE sites. Both deletion and mutation of the CRE site affected EDB alternative splicing in the same manner as the p300 knockdown. Next we showed that p300 controls histone...
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Regulation of alternative splicing via chromatin modifications
Hozeifi, Samira ; Staněk, David (advisor) ; Krásný, Libor (referee) ; Lanctôt, Christian (referee)
Alternative splicing (AS) is involved in expansion of transcriptome and proteome during cell growth, cell death, pluripotency, cell differentiation and development. There is increasing evidence to suggest that splicing decisions are made when the nascent RNA is still associated with chromatin. Here, I studied regulation of AS via chromatin modification with main focus on histone acetylation. First, we demonstrate that activity of histone deacetylases (HDACs) influences splice site selection in 700 genes. We provided evidence that HDAC inhibition induces histone H4 acetylation and increases RNA Polymerase II (RNA Pol II) processivity along an alternatively spliced element. In addition, HDAC inhibition reduces co-transcriptional association of the splicing regulator SRp40 with the target fibronectin exon. Further we showed that histone acetylation reader, Brd2 protein, affect transcription of 1450 genes. Besides, almost 290 genes change their AS pattern upon Brd2 depletion. We study distribution of Brd2 along the target and control genes and find that Brd2 is specifically localized at promoters of target genes only. Surprisingly, Brd2 interaction with chromatin cannot be explained solely by histone acetylation, which suggests that other protein-domains (in addition to bromodomains) are important for...
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Characterization of the PTEN domain of selected Arabidopsis class II formins
Přerostová, Sylva ; Cvrčková, Fatima (advisor) ; Havelková, Lenka (referee)
Formins are proteins facilitating formation of actin filaments. They affect structure of cytoskeleton and participate in cytokinesis and tip growth. There are 2 classes of formins in Arabidopsis thaliana, which include FH1 and FH2 (Formin Homology 1 and 2) domain. Formins of the class I have usually a transmembrane domain on N-terminus. Due to this fact they can interact with membranes. Some formins from the class II include PTEN domain (Phosphatase and Tensin Homolog) derived from sequences of PTEN proteins which has lost the function of phosphatase. It is assumed this domain can bind on a membrane via the phosphatase section or C2 domain. This thesis was focused on the formin AtFH13 from the class II in Arabidopsis thaliana and on its PTEN domain. There were analyzed differences between mutants and wild-types in length of roots in seedlings and in size of seeds and seed coats, and observed the effect of dexamethasone on the length of roots on AtFH13. PTEN domain of the formin was isolated from cDNA, cloned to a vector and fused with YFP. The tagged protein was visualized by the method of transient expression in epidermal cells in the leaves of Nicotiana benthamiana. No big differences were observed between plants mutant in the gene AtFH13 and wild-type in choice parameters. Dexamethasone did't influence...
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Regulace pre-mRNA sestřihu v prostředí buněčného jádra
Hnilicová, Jarmila ; Staněk, David (advisor) ; Půta, František (referee) ; Dvořák, Michal (referee)
Eukaryotic genes contain non-coding sequences - introns that are removed during pre-mRNA splicing by the spliceosome. The spliceosome is composed of five snRNPs (U1, U2, U4/U6 and U5) which assemble on pre-mRNA in a step-wise manner and together with additional non-snRNP proteins catalyse splicing. Mutations in splicing factors can cause severe diseases, for example a point missense mutation (called AD29) in hPrp31 (U4/U6 snRNP specific protein) induces retinitis pigmentosa, disease often leading to complete blindness. In this PhD thesis we show that the hPrp31 AD29 mutant is unstable and is not properly incorporated into spliceosomal snRNPs. In addition, the expression of the mutant protein reduces cell proliferation, which indicates that it interferes with cellular metabolism (likely splicing) and could explain the induction of retinitis pigmentosa. Next, we focus on a role of nuclear environment in pre-mRNA splicing. It was shown that new U4/U6·U5 snRNPs are preferentially assembled in non-membrane nuclear structure - Cajal body. Here we expand this finding and provide evidence that Cajal bodies are also important for U4/U6·U5 snRNP recycling after splicing. In addition, we analyzed a role of chromatin and particularly histone acetylation modulates in splicing regulation. Using inhibitor of...
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Analysis and characterization of BRCA1 splicing variants.
Hojný, Jan ; Kleibl, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Souček, Pavel (referee)
The Breast cancer gene 1 (BRCA1) codes for nuclear phosphoprotein with a key function in the regulation of DNA damage response. The BRCA1 protein contributes to the formation and regulation of protein supercomplexes that participates on the DNA double-strand break repair. These protein supercomplexes are formed by the protein-protein interactions between highly conservative protein motives in BRCA1 and its binding partners. Except to the wild type form of BRCA1 mRNA containing entire set of 22 exons coding for the 220 kD protein, numerous alternative splicing variants (ASVs) BRCA1 mRNA has been described. These ASVs code for BRCA1 isoforms lacking several critical functional domains. It has been proposed, that formation of BRCA1's ASVs represent a tool for regulation of BRCA1 function. Only poorly has been characterized a complex catalogue of in various human tissues and their expression. This study aims to address these questions. We optimized the identification of BRCA1's ASVs including those covering the entire transcripts of the wt BRCA1 mRNA with length exceeding 5.5 kb. In further analysis, we characterized 13 BRCA1's ASVs in RNA samples isolated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMNC) obtained from patients with breast cancer (BC) and control subjects. The majority of the identified...
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The role of tyrosine phosphorylation in hnRNA splicing
Koudelková, Lenka ; Brábek, Jan (advisor) ; Kozáková, Eva (referee)
Coding sequences of eukaryotic genes are interrupted by long segments of noncoding intronic DNA, which must be spliced after a transcription into a heterogenous nuclear RNA. Due to an increasing pressure on complexity of proteome eukaryotic organisms evolved alternative splicing. It is enabled through weak consensus sequences of splice sites flanked with accessory regulatory RNA elements, that associate with splicing factors, to create protein products according to current requirements implicated by outer and inner conditions. The net of cooperatively or antagonistic acting factors determines whether splice sites are recognized or not. This molecular system is regulated by enzymatic modifications depending on activity of corresponding signaling pathways. Beside many other enzymes a family of protein tyrosine kinases is involved in the process. Via catalytic activity of their kinase domains, they add phosphate to tyrosines of proteins that participate in RNA metabolism. Phosphorylation affects their affinity for RNA and other interacting partners, localization, enzymatic activity or other properties. The changes result in establishing of new setting of regulatory net and usage of distinct splice sites. Products then may with a different efficiency inhibit or trigger various cell processes or...
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