PRPF8 iCLIP on HeLa cells in response to eIF4A3 Knockdown

This experiment uses iCLIP to identify the binding pattern of the spliceosomal protein PRPF8 on RNA. The data shows that PRPF8 binds strongly and specifically in the region 12 to 14nt upstream of 5' splice sites (5ss). Due to PRPF8's role in the formation of the catalytically active spliceosome, this data can be used as a readout of 5ss selection. Here, we performed iCLIP on HeLa cells treated with control or EIF4A3 siRNA, with 4 replicate samples per condition and eIF4A3 protein levels reduced ~50% in knockdown. We investigated the role of the exon junction complex (EJC) in suppressing 5ss that are reconstituted at the junction of two canonical exons (RS-5ss) - selection of these splice sites would result in recursive splicing of canonical exons. We plotted the crosslink sites of reads that span an exon-exon junction, seperating reads that span RS-5ss from those that do not. We found that reads that span an RS-5ss are enriched at the 12-14nt window associated with 5ss selection, while reads that span other exon-exon junctions are not enriched. This effect is magnified greatly by knockdown of eIF4A3. The results indicate that RS-5ss can be used by the spliceosome, but that this process is usually repressed by the EJC. This data is evidence of recursive splicing of canonical exons and the role of the EJC in repressing recursive splicing.