UC Riverside

Profilin 1 (PFN1) is a cytoskeleton protein that modulates actin dynamics through binding to monomeric actin and polyproline-containing proteins. Mutations in PFN1 have been linked to the pathogenesis of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Here, we employed an unbiased proximity labeling strategy in combination with proteomic analysis for proteome-wide profiling of proteins that differentially interact with mutant and wild-type (WT) PFN1 proteins in human cells. We uncovered 11 mRNA splicing proteins that are preferentially enriched in the proximity proteomes of the two ALS-linked PFN1 variants, C71G and M114T, over that of wild-type PFN1. We validated the preferential interactions of the ALS-linked PFN1 variants with two mRNA splicing factors, hnRNPC and U2AF2, by immunoprecipitation, followed with immunoblotting. We also found that the two ALS-linked PFN1 variants promoted the exonization of Alu elements in the mRNAs of MTO1, TCFL5, WRN and POLE genes in human cells. Together, we showed that the two ALS-linked PFN1 variants interacted preferentially with mRNA splicing proteins, which elicited aberrant exonization of the Alu elements in mRNAs. Thus, our work provided pivotal insights into the perturbations of ALS-linked PFN1 variants in RNA biology and their potential contributions to ALS pathology.