Press-room / news / Science news /
Сytoskeleton protein Zyxin inhibits retinoic acid signaling by destabilizing maternal mRNA of nuclear receptor RXRγ
In a new study, researchers from the Laboratory of molecular bases of embryogenesis, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, demonstrated the versatility of the previously discovered mechanism of maternal genes mRNA destabilization caused by an interaction between the cytoskeletal protein Zyxin and the mRNA-binding factor Ybx1, showing that the same mechanism governs the retinoic acid signaling pathway during early embryonic development.
Zyxin is a LIM-domain protein that regulates the assembly of F-actin filaments at cell junctions. Zyxin can also enter the nucleus and regulate gene expression as a result of mechanical stress. The earlier study by the Laboratory of molecular bases of embryogenesis, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences identified a mechanism by which Zyxin contributes to the stability of mRNA for maternal factors of pluripotency in Pou5f3 family cells of Xenopus laevis embryos by binding to Ybx1 protein (Parshina et al., 2020, Cell Reports 33(7):108397). The authors of a new study demonstrate that Zyxin can also influence maternal retinoid rxrγ mRNA stability through a similar mechanism, and further demonstrate a functional relationship between Zyxin and Rxrγ expression.
Thus, in addition to revealing a previously unknown role for Zyxin in the regulation of rxrγ mRNA levels, the data obtained suggests that the previously discovered mechanism of mRNA destabilization through interaction of Zyxin with Ybx1 may play an even more universal role for maternal transcript levels in embryonic development.
The work was published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
may 20, 2022