Enforcing Post-Transcriptional Circuitries to Achieve Human Hematopoietic Stem Cell Expansion

The balance between hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) differentiation and self-renewal is central to clinical regenerative paradigms. Unravelling the precise molecular mechanisms that govern HSC fate choices will thus have far reaching consequences for the development of effective therapies for hematopoietic and immunological disorders. There is an emerging recognition that beyond transcription, HSC homeostasis is subject to post-transcriptional control by RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) that ensure precise control of gene expression by modulating mRNA splicing, polyadenylation, localization, degradation or translation. RBPs can synchronously regulate the fates of operationally similar RNAs, in what have been termed RNA regulons. We have used a variety of functional approaches, in combination with unbiased genome- and proteome-scale, methods to define the tenets that govern this regulation and to determine key downstream circuitries of stem cell-regulating RBPs whose targeting could provide the basis for novel regenerative treatments. Through loss-of-function efforts, we have identified the RBP, MSI2, as a required factor for human HSC maintenance. By contrast, at supraphysiological levels, MSI2 has a profound positive effect on human HSC self-renewal decisions. Using a combination of global profiling, including mapping MSI2's targets through cross-linking immunoprecipitation (CLIP)-seq, we show that MSI2 achieves its ex vivo self-renewal-promoting effects by directing a co-ordinated post-transcriptional repression of key targets within the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) pathway. We are currently exploring the "rules" by which MSI2 influences its downstream effects on target RNAs and how it functions, in combination with other protein interactors, to instill a putative RBP regulatory code in HSCs. HSCs exhibit highly unique epigenomes, transcriptomes and proteomes and it is this distinctive molecular landscape that provides the canvas upon which MSI2, and indeed any other HSC-specific RBP exert their post-transcriptional influence over stem cell function. As such, to decipher the bona fide RNA networks that RBPs function upon in HSCs and to understand how they influence this network to enforce self-renewal, we are working towards performing systematic studies of RBP regulons in these cells specifically. In turn these approaches are elucidating a host of RBPs and post-transcriptional control mechanisms previously unappreciated for their role in HSC control. When modulated appropriately, we can successfully tailor these post-transcriptional regulons to enforce desired HSC outputs ex vivo. In summary, approaches to elucidate key HSC-regulatory RBPs and their protein and RNA interactomes provide valuable insights into a layer of HSC control previously not well understood, and one that can be capitalized on to achieve successful HSC expansion.