Poster Presentation The 44th Lorne Conference on Protein Structure and Function 2019

The Diverse Roles of Paraspeckle Components (#262)

Joanne Coyle 1 , Yann Gambin 1 , Emma Sierecki 1
  1. University of New South Wales, Randwick, NSW, Australia

Paraspeckles are a membranless organelle in the nucleus that contain ~40 proteins. They form via liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) which represents a phenomenon in biology where proteins in a liquid separate into a gel like phase allowing compartmentalisation without a membrane. As this organelle was only recently discovered in 2002 by Fox et al, the function of a paraspeckle is yet to be confirmed. Paraspeckles are believed to be important in cellular stress events such as the introduction of a virus to the cell, or in certain neurodegenerative diseases but the exact function is still largely unknown. This poster will describe the current proposed roles of paraspeckles. It will discuss the link between viral components and paraspeckle proteins and the link between paraspeckle proteins and neurodegenerative diseases, such as with FUS, SFPQ, HnRNP proteins and TDP-43. Importantly, it will also talk about the phenomenon of phase separation and how different domains of proteins are linked to causing LLPS. I have been working on paraspeckle proteins for 6 months and will be starting a PhD this year working on paraspeckle proteins. This multi-disciplinary poster aims to lay out the ideas for my PhD in order to initiate discussion to further shape my PhD plan and to communicate with scientists from all disciplines about the emerging importance of LLPS and membraneless organelles.

  1. Aguzzi, A. & Altmeyer, M. Phase Separation: Linking Cellular Compartmentalization to Disease. Trends Cell Biol. 26, 547–558 (2016).
  2. Fox, A. H., Nakagawa, S., Hirose, T. & Bond, C. S. Paraspeckles : Where Long Noncoding RNA Meets Phase Separation. Trends Biochem. Sci. 43, 124–135 (2018).
  3. Lahaye, X. et al. NONO Detects the Nuclear HIV Capsid to Promote cGAS-Mediated Innate Immune Activation Article NONO Detects the Nuclear HIV Capsid to Promote cGAS-Mediated Innate Immune Activation. 488–501 (2018)
  4. Zhang, Q., Chen, C. Y., Yedavalli, V. S. R. K. & Jeang, K. T. NEAT1 long noncoding RNA and paraspeckle bodies modulate HIV-1 posttranscriptional expression. MBio (2013).