The box C/D snoRNP assembly factor Bcd1 interacts with the histone chaperone Rtt106 and controls its transcription dependent activity

iSnoDi-LSGT: identifying snoRNA-disease associations based on local similarity constraints and global topological constraints

Growing evidence proves that small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) have important functions in various biological processes, the malfunction of which leads to the emergence and development of complex diseases. However, identifying snoRNA-disease associations is an ongoing challenging task due to the considerable time- and money-consuming biological experiments. Therefore, it is urgent to design efficient and economical methods for the identification of snoRNA-disease associations. In this regard, we propose a computational method named iSnoDi-LSGT, which utilizes snoRNA sequence similarity and disease similarity as local similarity constraints. The iSnoDi-LSGT predictor further employs network embedding technology to extract topological features of snoRNAs and diseases, based on which snoRNA topological similarity and disease topological similarity are calculated as global topological constraints. To the best of our knowledge, the iSnoDi-LSGT is the first computational method for snoRNA-disease association identification. The experimental results indicate that the iSnoDi-LSGT predictor can effectively predict unknown snoRNA-disease associations. The web server of the iSnoDi-LSGT predictor is freely available at http://bliulab.net/iSnoDi-LSGT.

Structural Analysis of the Plasmodial Proteins ZNHIT3 and NUFIP1 Provides Insights into the Selectivity of a Conserved Interaction

Malaria is a widespread and lethal disease caused by the Plasmodium parasites that can infect human beings through Anopheles mosquitoes. For that reason, the biology of Plasmodium needs to be studied to develop antimalarial treatments. By determining the three-dimensional structures of macromolecules, structural biology helps to understand the function of proteins and can reveal how interactions occur between biological partners. Here, we studied the ZNHIT3 and NUFIP1 proteins from Plasmodium falciparum, two proteins tightly linked to the ribosome biology. Due to their important functions in post-translational modifications of ribosomal RNAs and in ribophagy, these proteins participate in the survival of cells. In this study, we solved the three-dimensional structure of a thermally stable and species-dependent complex between fragments of these proteins. Our results were compared to the AlphaFold predictions, which motivated the study of the free ZNHIT3 fragment that binds NUFIP1. We showed that the latter fragment multimerized in vitro but also had the inner ability to change its conformation to escape the solvent exposition of key hydrophobic residues involved in the interaction with NUFIP1. Our data could open the gate to selective drug discovery processes involving these two proteins.

Emerging Data on the Diversity of Molecular Mechanisms Involving C/D snoRNAs

Box C/D small nucleolar RNAs (C/D snoRNAs) represent an ancient family of small non-coding RNAs that are classically viewed as housekeeping guides for the 2′-O-methylation of ribosomal RNA in Archaea and Eukaryotes. However, an extensive set of studies now argues that they are involved in mechanisms that go well beyond this function. Here, we present these pieces of evidence in light of the current comprehension of the molecular mechanisms that control C/D snoRNA expression and function. From this inventory emerges that an accurate description of these activities at a molecular level is required to let the snoRNA field enter in a second age of maturity.