No abstract

Summary The notion that decapping leads irreversibly to mRNA decay changed with the identification of capped transcripts missing portions of their 5′ ends and a cytoplasmic complex that can restore the cap on uncapped mRNAs. The current study used accumulation of uncapped transcripts in cells inhibited for cytoplasmic capping to identify the targets of this pathway. Inhibition of cytoplasmic capping resulted in the destabilization of some transcripts and the redistribution of others from polysomes to non-translating mRNPs, where they accumulate in an uncapped state. Only a portion of the mRNA transcriptome is affected by cytoplasmic capping, and its targets encode proteins involved in nucleotide binding, RNA and protein localization and the mitotic cell cycle. The 3′-UTRs of recapping targets are enriched for AU-rich elements and microRNA binding sites, both of which function in cap-dependent mRNA silencing. These findings identify a cyclical process of decapping and recapping we term cap homeostasis.

No abstract

Cap homeostasis is a cyclical process of decapping and recapping that impacts a portion of the mRNA transcriptome. The metastable uncapped forms of recapping targets redistribute from polysomes to non-translating mRNPs, and recapping is all that is needed for their return to the translating pool. Previous work identified a cytoplasmic capping metabolon consisting of capping enzyme (CE) and a 5′-monophosphate kinase bound to adjacent domains of Nck1. The current study identifies the canonical cap methyltransferase (RNMT) as the enzyme responsible for guanine-N7 methylation of recapped mRNAs. RNMT binds directly to CE, and its presence in the cytoplasmic capping complex was demonstrated by pulldown assays, gel filtration and proximity-dependent biotinylation. The latter also identified the RNMT cofactor RAM, whose presence is required for cytoplasmic cap methyltransferase activity. These findings guided development of an inhibitor of cytoplasmic cap methylation whose action resulted in a selective decrease in levels of recapped mRNAs.

mRNA capping and decapping requires a cytoplasmic complex to maintain and/or restore the 5′ cap on a subset of the mammalian transcriptome; Nck1, an SH2/SH3 adapter, creates a scaffold upon which the cytoplasmic capping complex forms.