Stress-responsive error-prone DNA polymerase genes transferred along with key symbiotic genes ease the evolution of a soil bacterium into a legume endosymbiont by accelerating adaptation of the recipient bacterial genome to its new plant host.

DYX1C1, DCDC2, and KIAA0319 are three of the most replicated dyslexia candidate genes (DCGs). Recently, these DCGs were implicated in functions at the cilium. Here, we investigate the regulation of these DCGs by Regulatory Factor X transcription factors (RFX TFs), a gene family known for transcriptionally regulating ciliary genes. We identify conserved X-box motifs in the promoter regions of DYX1C1, DCDC2, and KIAA0319 and demonstrate their functionality, as well as the ability to recruit RFX TFs using reporter gene and electrophoretic mobility shift assays. Furthermore, we uncover a complex regulation pattern between RFX1, RFX2, and RFX3 and their significant effect on modifying the endogenous expression of DYX1C1 and DCDC2 in a human retinal pigmented epithelial cell line immortalized with hTERT (hTERT-RPE1). In addition, induction of ciliogenesis increases the expression of RFX TFs and DCGs. At the protein level, we show that endogenous DYX1C1 localizes to the base of the cilium, whereas DCDC2 localizes along the entire axoneme of the cilium, thereby validating earlier localization studies using overexpression models. Our results corroborate the emerging role of DCGs in ciliary function and characterize functional noncoding elements, X-box promoter motifs, in DCG promoter regions, which thus can be targeted for mutation screening in dyslexia and ciliopathies associated with these genes.—Tammimies, K., Bieder, A., Lauter, G., Sugiaman-Trapman, D., Torchet, R., Hokkanen, M.-E., Burghoorn, J., Castrén, E., Kere, J., Tapia-Páez, I., Swoboda, P. Ciliary dyslexia candidate genes DYX1C1 and DCDC2 are regulated by Regulatory Factor (RF) X transcription factors through X-box promoter motifs.

Motivation One avenue to address the paucity of clinically testable targets is to reinvestigate the druggable genome by tackling complicated types of targets such as Protein-Protein Interactions (PPIs). Given the challenge to target those interfaces with small chemical compounds, it has become clear that learning from successful examples of PPI modulation is a powerful strategy. Freely accessible databases of PPI modulators that provide the community with tractable chemical and pharmacological data, as well as powerful tools to query them, are therefore essential to stimulate new drug discovery projects on PPI targets. Results Here, we present the new version iPPI-DB, our manually curated database of PPI modulators. In this completely redesigned version of the database, we introduce a new web interface relying on crowdsourcing for the maintenance of the database. This interface was created to enable community contributions, whereby external experts can suggest new database entries. Moreover, the data model, the graphical interface, and the tools to query the database have been completely modernized and improved. We added new PPI modulators, new PPI targets and extended our focus to stabilizers of PPIs as well. Availability and implementation The iPPI-DB server is available at https://ippidb.pasteur.fr The source code for this server is available at https://gitlab.pasteur.fr/ippidb/ippidb-web/ and is distributed under GPL licence (http://www.gnu.org/licences/gpl). Queries can be shared through persistent links according to the FAIR data standards. Data can be downloaded from the website as csv files. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.