NG2 protein-expressing oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPC) are a persisting and major glial cell population in the adult mammalian brain. Direct synaptic innervation of OPC by neurons throughout the brain together with their ability to sense neuronal network activity raises the question of additional physiological roles of OPC, supplementary to generating myelinating oligodendrocytes. In this study we investigated whether OPC express neuromodulatory factors, typically synthesized by other CNS cell types. Our results show that OPC express two well-characterized neuromodulatory proteins: Prostaglandin D2 synthase (PTGDS) and neuronal Pentraxin 2 (Nptx2/Narp). Expression levels of the enzyme PTGDS are influenced in cultured OPC by the NG2 intracellular region which can be released by cleavage and localizes to glial nuclei upon transfection. Furthermore PTGDS mRNA levels are reduced in OPC from NG2-KO mouse brain compared to WT cells after isolation by cell sorting and direct analysis. These results show that OPC can contribute to the expression of these proteins within the CNS and suggest PTGDS expression as a downstream target of NG2 signaling.

Recent studies point to the existence of poorly characterized small regulatory RNAs generated from mRNAs, rRNAs and tRNAs. To explore the subcellular location of tRNA-derived small RNAs, 0–1 and 7–8 h Drosophila embryos were fractionated on sucrose density gradients. Analysis of 12,553,921 deep-sequencing reads from unfractionated and fractionated Drosophila embryos has revealed that tRFs, which are detected mainly from the 5’ends of tRNAs, co-sediment with the non-polysomal fractions. Interestingly, the expression levels of a subset of tRFs change temporally following the maternal-to-zygotic transition in embryos. We detected non-polysomal association of tRFs in S2 cells as well. Differential tRF expression pattern points to developmental significance at the organismal level. These results suggest that tRFs are associated primarily with the non-polysomal complexes in Drosophila embryos and S2 cells.

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Small ribonucleic acids (RNAs) are known to regulate gene expression during early development. However, the dynamics of interaction between small RNAs and polysomes during this process is largely unknown. To investigate this phenomenon, 0–1 h and 7–8 h Drosophila melanogaster embryos were fractionated on sucrose density gradients into four fractions based on A254 reading (1) translationally inactive messenger ribonucleoprotein (mRNP), (2) 60S, (3) monosome, and (4) polysome. Comparative analysis of deep-sequencing reads from fractionated and un-fractionated 0–1 h and 7–8 h embryos revealed development-specific co-sedimentation pattern of small RNAs with the cellular translation machinery. Although most micro RNAs (miRNAs) did not have a specific preference for any state of the translational machinery, we detected fraction-specific enrichment of a few miRNAs such as dme-miR-1-3p, -184-3p, 5-5p and 263-5p. More interestingly, we observed changes in the subcellular location of a subset of miRNAs in fractionated embryos despite no measurable difference in their amount in unfractionated embryos. Transposon-derived endo small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) were over-expressed in 7–8 h embryos and associated mainly with the mRNP fraction. In contrast, transposon-derived PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNA), which were more abundant in 0–1 h embryos, co-sedimented primarily with the polysome fractions. These results suggest that there appears to be a complex interplay among the small RNAs with respect to their polysome-cosedimentation pattern during early development in Drosophila melanogaster.