The extent, regulation and enzymatic basis of RNA editing by cytidine deamination are incompletely understood. Here we show that transcripts of hundreds of genes undergo site-specific C>U RNA editing in macrophages during M1 polarization and in monocytes in response to hypoxia and interferons. This editing alters the amino acid sequences for scores of proteins, including many that are involved in pathogenesis of viral diseases. APOBEC3A, which is known to deaminate cytidines of single-stranded DNA and to inhibit viruses and retrotransposons, mediates this RNA editing. Amino acid residues of APOBEC3A that are known to be required for its DNA deamination and anti-retrotransposition activities were also found to affect its RNA deamination activity. Our study demonstrates the cellular RNA editing activity of a member of the APOBEC3 family of innate restriction factors and expands the understanding of C>U RNA editing in mammals.

APOBEC3G is a cytidine deaminase with two homologous domains and restricts retroelements and HIV-1. APOBEC3G deaminates single-stranded DNAs via its C-terminal domain, whereas the N-terminal domain is considered non-catalytic. Although APOBEC3G is known to bind RNAs, APOBEC3G-mediated RNA editing has not been observed. We recently discovered RNA editing by the single-domain enzyme APOBEC3A in innate immune cells. To determine if APOBEC3G is capable of RNA editing, we transiently expressed APOBEC3G in the HEK293T cell line and performed transcriptome-wide RNA sequencing. We show that APOBEC3G causes site-specific C-to-U editing of mRNAs from over 600 genes. The edited cytidines are often flanked by inverted repeats, but are largely distinct from those deaminated by APOBEC3A. We verified protein-recoding RNA editing of selected genes including several that are known to be involved in HIV-1 infectivity. APOBEC3G co-purifies with highly edited mRNA substrates. We find that conserved catalytic residues in both cytidine deaminase domains are required for RNA editing. Our findings demonstrate the novel RNA editing function of APOBEC3G and suggest a role for the N-terminal domain in RNA editing.

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Forty loci (16 polymorphic and 24 non-polymorphic) together with 23 cosmids isolated from a chromosome 11-specific library were used to construct a detailed genetic map of 11p13-11q13. The map was constructed by using a panel of 13 somatic cell hybrids that sub-divided this region into 19 intervals, a meiotic mapping panel of 33 multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1) families (134 affected and 269 unaffected members) and a mitotic mapping panel that was used to identify loss of heterozygosity in 38 MEN1-associated tumours. The results defined the most likely order of the 16 loci as being: 11pter-D11S871-(D11S288, D11S149)-11cen-CNTF-PGA-ROM1-D11S480-PYGM- SEA-D11S913-D11S970-D11S97- D11S146-INT2-D11S971-D11S533-11qter. The meiotic mapping studies indicated that the most likely location of the MEN1 gene was in the interval flanked by PYGM and D11S97, and the results of mitotic mapping suggested a possible location of the MEN1 gene telomeric to SEA. Mapping studies of the gene encoding mu-calpain (CAPN1) located CAPN1 to 11q13 and in the vicinity of the MEN1 locus. However, mutational analysis studies did not detect any germ-line CAPN1 DNA sequence abnormalities in 47 unrelated MEN1 patients and the results therefore exclude CAPN1 as the MEN1 gene. The detailed genetic map that has been constructed of the 11p13-11q13 region should facilitate the construction of a physical map and the identification of candidate genes for disease loci mapped to this region.

Mutations in mitochondrial complex II (succinate dehydrogenase; SDH) genes predispose to paraganglioma tumors that show constitutive activation of hypoxia responses. We recently showed that SDHB mRNAs in hypoxic monocytes gain a stop codon mutation by APOBEC3A-mediated C-to-U RNA editing. Here, we test the hypothesis that inhibition of complex II facilitates hypoxic gene expression in monocytes using an integrative experimental approach. By RNA sequencing, we show that specific inhibition of complex II by atpenin A5 in normoxic conditions mimics hypoxia and induces hypoxic transcripts as well as APOBEC3A-mediated RNA editing in human monocytes. Myxothiazol, a complex III inhibitor, has similar effects in normoxic monocytes. Atpenin A5 partially inhibits oxygen consumption, and neither hypoxia nor atpenin A5 in normoxia robustly stabilizes hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1α in primary monocytes. Several earlier studies in transformed cell lines suggested that normoxic stabilization of HIF-1α explains the persistent expression of hypoxic genes upon complex II inactivation. On the contrary, we find that atpenin A5 antagonizes the stabilization of HIF-1α and reduces hypoxic gene expression in transformed cell lines. Accordingly, compound germline heterozygosity of mouse Sdhb/Sdhc/Sdhd null alleles blunts chronic hypoxia-induced increases in hemoglobin levels, an adaptive response mainly regulated by HIF-2α. In contrast, atpenin A5 or myxothiazol does not reduce hypoxia-induced gene expression or RNA editing in monocytes. These results reveal a novel role for mitochondrial respiratory inhibition in induction of the hypoxic transcriptome in monocytes and suggest that inhibition of complex II activates a distinct hypoxia signaling pathway in a cell-type specific manner.

Background. RNA editing is a post-transcriptional regulatory mechanism that can alter the coding sequences of certain genes in response to physiological demands. We previously identified C-to-U RNA editing (C136U, R46X) which inactivates a small fraction of succinate dehydrogenase (SDH; mitochondrial complex II) subunit B gene (SDHB) mRNAs in normal steady-state peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). SDH is a heterotetrameric tumor suppressor complex which when mutated causes paraganglioma tumors that are characterized by constitutive activation of hypoxia inducible pathways. Here, we studied regulation, extent and cell type origin of SDHB RNA editing.Methods. We used short-term cultured PBMCs obtained from random healthy platelet donors, performed monocyte enrichment by cold aggregation, employed a novel allele-specific quantitative PCR method, flow cytometry, immunologic cell separation, gene expression microarray, database analysis and high-throughput RNA sequencing.Results. While the editing rate is low in uncultured monocyte-enriched PBMCs (average rate 2.0%, range 0.4%–6.3%, n = 42), it is markedly upregulated upon exposure to 1% oxygen tension (average rate 18.2%, range 2.8%–49.4%, n = 14) and during normoxic macrophage differentiation in the presence of serum (average rate 10.1%, range 2.7%–18.8%, n = 17). The normoxic induction of SDHB RNA editing was associated with the development of dense adherent aggregates of monocytes in culture. CD14-positive monocyte isolation increased the percentages of C136U transcripts by 1.25-fold in normoxic cultures (n = 5) and 1.68-fold in hypoxic cultures (n = 4). CD14-negative lymphocytes showed no evidence of SDHB editing. The SDHB genomic DNA remained wild-type during increased RNA editing. Microarray analysis showed expression changes in wound healing and immune response pathway genes as the editing rate increased in normoxic cultures. High-throughput sequencing of SDHB and SDHD transcripts confirmed the induction of C136U RNA editing in normoxic cultures but showed no additional verifiable coding edits. Analysis of SDHB RNA sequence data from 16 normal human tissues from the Illumina Body Map and from 45 samples representing 23 different cell types from the ENCODE projects confirmed the occurrence of site-specific C136U editing in whole blood (1.7%) and two primary CD14+ monocyte samples (1.9% and 2.6%). In contrast, the other cell types showed an average of 0.2% and 0.1% C136U editing rates in the two databases, respectively.Conclusions. These findings demonstrate that C-to-U coding RNA editing of certain genes is dynamically induced by physiologically relevant environmental factors and suggest that epigenetic downregulation of SDHB by site-specific RNA editing plays a role in hypoxia adaptation in monocytes.

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Development of post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) agents for therapeutic purposes is an immense challenge in modern biology. Established technologies used to knockdown a specific target RNA and its cognate protein: antisense, ribozyme, RNAi, all conditionally depend upon an initial, critical annealing event of the PTGS ligand to a target RNA. In this review we address the nature of the bottlenecks, emphasizing the biocomplexity of target RNA structure, that currently limit PTGS therapeutic development. We briefly review existing and emerging technologies designed to release these constraints to realize the potential of PTGS agents in gene based therapies.