LINE1 is an autonomous transposable element from the long interspersed nuclear element (LINE) family. Its copies account for approximately 17% of the human genome. Elevated levels of LINE1 retrotransposition are observed in different pathologies, such as cancer and some autoimmune and neurological diseases. An integral part of LINE1 retrotransposition machinery is the RNA-binding protein ORF1p. YRNA and vaultRNA are two groups of small non-coding RNA molecules with largely unknown functions. Based on previous results of ORF1p interacting RNAs, we wanted to evaluate the interaction of human vaultRNA1-1 (vtRNA1-1) and RNY4 with ORF1p and further discover their potential effects on retrotransposition. Interactions of endogenous ORF1p from 2102Ep and NTERA-2 cell lines with both non-coding RNAs were first experimentally confirmed by RNA pull-down assay. For overexpression studies in mammalian cells, we constructed pcDNA3.1-U6 vector, that has U6 promoter sequence for RNA polymerase III. We inserted vtRNA1-1 and RNY4 sequences into the vector and confirmed effectiveness of final constructs in HeLa cells with quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). Constructs were then used for evaluation of effects of RNY4 or vtRNA1-1 overexpression on LINE1 retrotransposition. For this purpose, we used a retrotransposition assay, where new copies of the retrotransposon are counted by flow cytometry of EGFP (enhanced green fluorescent protein) reporter positive cells. We showed that overexpression of RNY4 lowers retrotransposition levels, while overexpression of vtRNA1-1 had no significant effect. In the last part, we explored cellular localisation of ORF1p and autophagy receptor protein SQSTM1 (p62), which was recently found to be regulated by vtRNA1-1. We did not observe colocalization of these two proteins in HEK 293T cells, even with induction of oxidative stress or autophagy inhibition. The results offer new insights into RNA-binding properties of ORF1p and on effects of non-coding RNA on retrotransposition of LINE1.
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