Coupling Between Cell Cycle Progression and the Nuclear RNA Polymerases System

Abstract

Eukaryotic life is possible due to the multitude of complex and precise phenomena that take place in the cell. Essential processes like gene transcription, mRNA translation, cell growth, and proliferation, or membrane traffic, among many others, are strictly regulated to ensure functional success. Such systems or vital processes do not work and adjusts independently of each other. It is required to ensure coordination among them which requires communication, or crosstalk, between their different elements through the establishment of complex regulatory networks. Distortion of this coordination affects, not only the specific processes involved, but also the whole cell fate. However, the connection between some systems and cell fate, is not yet very well understood and opens lots of interesting questions. In this review, we focus on the coordination between the function of the three nuclear RNA polymerases and cell cycle progression. Although we mainly focus on the model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae, different aspects and similarities in higher eukaryotes are also addressed. We will first focus on how the different phases of the cell cycle affect the RNA polymerases activity and then how RNA polymerases status impacts on cell cycle. A good example of how RNA polymerases functions impact on cell cycle is the ribosome biogenesis process, which needs the coordinated and balanced production of mRNAs and rRNAs synthesized by the three eukaryotic RNA polymerases. Distortions of this balance generates ribosome biogenesis alterations that can impact cell cycle progression. We also pay attention to those cases where specific cell cycle defects generate in response to repressed synthesis of ribosomal proteins or RNA polymerases assembly defects.

Visualization of Deep Tissue G-quadruplexes with a Novel Large Stokes-Shifted Red Fluorescent Benzothiazole Derivative

“…16 Interestingly, it has been reported that RNA polymerase has the highest activity in the S-phase, which suggests a faster RNA synthesis rate and more G4 folding events. 42 Thus, we reasonably infer that cells may contain more RNA G4 in the S-phase. To test this hypothesis in our system, the Hela cells were treated separately to simulate the corresponding cell phase.…”

A clade of RHH proteins ubiquitous in Sulfolobales and their viruses regulates cell cycle progression

“…A similar mechanism has been described in the alphaproteobacteria, where a circuit of antagonistic regulators act together to control transcription across the different phases of the cell cycle (reviewed Panis et al 2015). In eukaryotes, transcriptional control of the cell cycle is linked to the activity of cyclins and cyclin dependent kinases, which, among other changes, regulate the activity of the three RNA polymerases and are important for the G1/S transition (Delgado-Román and Muñoz-Centeno, 2021).…”

“…Additional work is required to elucidate the role of RHH-domain transcriptional factors in regulating cell cycle progression in the Archaea domain.We predict the existence of several regulatory factors whose successive activation drives the transcription of different sets of genes during cell cycle progression. A similar mechanism has been described in the alphaproteobacteria, where a circuit of antagonistic regulators act together to control transcription across the different phases of the cell cycle (reviewedPanis et al 2015).In eukaryotes, transcriptional control of the cell cycle is linked to the activity of cyclins and cyclin dependent kinases, which, among other changes, regulate the activity of the three RNA polymerases and are important for the G1/S transition(Delgado-Román and Muñoz-Centeno, 2021).Regulation of cell growth, cytokinesis and DNA replication and segregation is exquisitely and robustly coupled in the three domains of life. These processes are linked together by several layers of regulation that involve different mechanisms and control strategies, and we envisage a similarly complex picture for the archaea domain.…”

Cyclin-Dependent Kinases and CTD Phosphatases in Cell Cycle Transcriptional Control: Conservation across Eukaryotic Kingdoms and Uniqueness to Plants

“…Progression through the cell cycle requires synthesis of more than 1000 cell cycle-dependent or cell cycle-related proteins [ 1 , 24 ]. This process is regulated at the transcriptional level primarily during the S and M phases.…”

“…This process is regulated at the transcriptional level primarily during the S and M phases. During the S phase, a group of genes encoding proteins important for DNA replication and DNA repair are transcribed, while another group of genes that encode proteins involved in mitosis and cytokinesis are expressed during the M phase [ 24 ]. Then, these cell cycle phase-specific proteins are subjected to proteasome-mediated degradation after completion of the S phase and the M phases, respectively, to ensure precisely ordered progression through the cell cycle and eventual exit from the cycle until mitotic cues are perceived to initiate another round of cell division.…”