Comparison of RNA profiling between wild type, med20?, rrp6? and med20?/rrp6? in Schizosaccharomyces pombe

Mediator is a co-regulator of RNA polymerase II (Pol II), transducing signals from regulatory elements and transcription factors to the general transcription machinery at the promoter. We here demonstrate that Med20 influences ribosomal protein expression in fission yeast. In addition, loss of Med20 leads to an accumulation of aberrant readthrough tRNA transcripts. The aberrant transcripts are polyadenylated and targeted for degradation by the exosome.  Similarly, other specialized RNA molecules, such as snRNA, snoRNA and rRNA are also accumulated in the absence of Med20. We suggest that fission yeast Mediator takes part in a regulatory pathway of Pol III transcripts. Overall design: RNA-sequencing of wt, med20?, rrp6?, med20?/rrp6? strains using wt as control. Each strain was sequenced using three biological replicas. The results were analyzed for differential expression.