Abstract
We describe a low-input RNase footprinting approach for the rapid quantification of ribosome-protected fragments with as few as 1000 cultured cells. The assay uses a simplified procedure to selectively capture ribosome footprints based on optimized RNase digestion. It simultaneously maps cytosolic and mitochondrial translation with single-nucleotide resolution. We applied it to reveal selective functions of the elongation factor TUFM in mitochondrial translation, as well as synchronized repression of cytosolic translation after TUFM perturbation. We show the assay is applicable to small amounts of primary tissue samples with low protein synthesis rates, including snap-frozen tissues and immune cells from an individual’s blood draw. We showed its feasibility to characterize the personalized immuno-translatome. Our analyses revealed that thousands of genes show lower translation efficiency in monocytes compared with lymphocytes, and identified thousands of translated noncanonical open reading frames (ORFs). Altogether, our RNase footprinting approach opens an avenue to assay transcriptome-wide translation using low-input samples from a wide range of physiological conditions.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 545-557 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Genome research |
Volume | 32 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 2022 |
Funding
We thank Marcus Peter, Alfred George, Derek Walsh, Feng Yue, and members of Zhe Ji’s laboratory for helpful discussions. This work was supported by grants to Z.J.: the National Institutes of Health (R35GM138192, R01HL161389, and R00CA207865), Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Lynn Sage Scholar fund, and the Searle Leadership Fund in the Life Sciences from Northwestern University.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Genetics(clinical)
- Genetics