Original Article

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HITS-CLIP reveals sex-differential RNA binding and alterative splicing regulation of SRm160 in Drosophila Free
Chen Qiu 1,2,† , Yu Zhang 1,2,† , Yu-Jie Fan 1,3,† , Ting-Lin Pang 1,2 , Yan Su 1,3 , Shuai Zhan 1,2,4,* , and Yong-Zhen Xu 1,2,3,*
1 CAS Key Laboratory of Insect Developmental and Evolutionary Biology, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China
2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China
3 CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China
4 CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China
† These authors contributed equally to this work.
*Correspondence to:Yong-Zhen Xu, E-mail: yzxu@sibs.ac.cn; Shuai Zhan, E-mail: szhan@sibs.ac.cn
J Mol Cell Biol, Volume 11, Issue 2, February 2019, 170-181,  https://doi.org/10.1093/jmcb/mjy029
Keyword: SR protein, SRm160, HITS-CLIP, RNA-binding motif, Drosophila, sexual development

Serine/arginine (SR)-rich proteins are critical for the regulation of alternative splicing (AS), which generates multiple mRNA isoforms from one gene and provides protein diversity for cell differentiation and tissue development. Genetic evidence suggests that Drosophila genital-specific overexpression of SR-related nuclear matrix protein of 160 kDa (SRm160), an SR protein with a PWI RNA-binding motif, causes defective development only in male flies and results in abnormal male genital structures and abnormal testis. However, the molecular characterization of SRm160 is limited. Using the high-throughput sequencing of RNA isolated by crosslinking immunoprecipitation (HITS-CLIP) method in two sex-specific embryonic cell lines, S2 from the male and Kc from the female, we first identified the genome-wide RNA-binding characteristics of SRm160, which preferred binding to the exonic tri-nucleotide repeats GCA and AAC. We then validated this binding through both in vitro gel-shift assay and in vivo splicing of minigenes and found that SRm160 level affects AS of many transcripts. Furthermore, we identified 492 differential binding sites (DBS) of SRm160 varying between the two sex-specific cell lines. Among these DBS-containing genes, splicing factors were highly enriched, including transformer, a key regulator in the sex determination cascade. Analyses of fly mutants demonstrated that the SRm160 level affects AS isoforms of transformer. These findings shed crucial light on SRm160’s RNA-binding specificity and regulation of AS in Drosophila sex determination and development.