RpS19a depletion alters the haematopoietic translatome to directly drive tissue overgrowth I

Counterintuitively, increased tumour predisposition is associated with ribosomal protein (RP) loss. Here, we provide the first evidence that RP depletion can directly drive tissue overgrowth. Haematopoietic compartment-specific knockdown (KD) of RpS19a in the Drosophila lymph gland not only results in haematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) loss but also drives excess proliferation and tissue overgrowth. In accordance with continued ribosome assembly and protein synthesis, actively translating ribosomes (polysomes) are detected in RpS19a KD Drosophila S2 cells. The RpS19a KD ribosomes do, however, display heterogeneity and significantly altered stoichiometry of the associated translation initiation factors eIF4A and eIF5. Consistent with altered translation, in addition to increased association between polysomes and mRNA encoding growth promoting genes (e.g. Ras), we observe increased abundance of the ortholog of ribosomal (r)RNA small subunit methyltransferase NEP1. Although uncharacterised in Drosophila, in yeast and human NEP1 is implicated in methylation of 18S rRNA and, thus, 40S assembly and 80S ribosome stability. Moreover, NEP1 (EMG1) mutations in humans underpin Bowen-Conradi syndrome, a ribosomopathy associated with developmental defects, growth failure, and infantile death. Remarkably, NEP1 depletion suppresses the RpS19a KD phenotype, restoring both stem and progenitor cells and suppressing lymph gland overgrowth. We further demonstrate NEP1 depletion significantly decreases methylation of the 18S rRNA residue (?1,279) that is implicated in ribosome assembly. Together, these data suggest the increased NEP1 expression associated with RpS19a KD promotes assembly of pro-proliferative “onco-ribosomes” to drive haematopoietic compartment overgrowth. Overall design: We investigated the effect of RpS19a knockdown driven via shRNA transfection in Drosophila S2 cells on the translated mRNA isolated from polysome when compared to control. We also collected total cellular mRNA to serve as input. 3 biological replicates were collected for each condition.