Coiled Bodies Preferentially Associate with U4, U11, and U12 Small Nuclear RNA Genes in Interphase HeLa Cells but Not with U6 and U7 Genes

• DOI: 10.1091/mbc.10.5.1653
• Publication Date: 2013-07-02T23:30:30Z
• Authors: Erica Y. Jacobs; Mark R. Frey; Wei Wu; Thomas C. Ingledue; Thomas C. Gebuhr; Liming Gao; William F. Marzluff; A. Gregory Matera
• Keywords: Small nuclear RNA

Coiled bodies (CBs) are nuclear organelles involved in the metabolism of small RNAs (snRNAs) and histone messages. Their structural morphology molecular composition have been conserved from plants to animals. CBs preferentially specifically associate with genes that encode U1, U2, U3 snRNAs as well cell cycle–regulated loci. A common link among these previously identified CB-associated is they either clustered or tandemly repeated human genome. In an effort identify additional loci CBs, we isolated mapped chromosomal locations genomic clones corresponding bona fide U4, U6, U7, U11, U12 snRNA Unlike U1 U2 genes, each a single gene, exception U4 clone, which contains two genes. We next examined association found colocalized less frequently than their multicopy counterparts. To differentiate lower level preferential random colocalization, developed theoretical model yielded expected values for χ 2 tests against experimental data. Certain single-copy (U4, U12) but not controls were significantly (p < 0.000001) CBs. Recent evidence indicates interactions between mediated by nascent transcripts. Taken together, new results suggest CB may be substantially augmented increased transcriptional capacity Possible functional roles observed discussed.