Landscape of mitochondrial RNA binding proteome [mitoRICK]

This methodology, termed mitochondrial RNA interactome using click chemistry (mitoRICK), unexpectedly revealed a rapid turnover of mitochondria-encoded RNAs compared to their nuclear-encoded counterparts. MitoRICK has identified 122 high-confidence and 25 lower-confidence mitochondrial RNA binding proteins, which expanded the repertoire of mitochondrial RNA binding proteome, and provided a new avenue for understanding mitochondrial RNA metabolism or inherited diseases.

We found that MOV10, amongst many newly-identified RNA helicases, is a novel mitochondria-associated RBP. Functionally, MOV10 is important for MT-RNR1 expression or unwinding the mitochondrial double-strand RNAs. As a proof-of-concept, we applied mitoRICK to naïve-to-primed pluripotency transition for studying mitochondrial RBP dynamics, suggesting that intact mitochondrial RNA metabolism is essential for the cell fate transition.