Mov10 in developing brain suppresses retroelements and regulates neuronal development and function

RNA helicase MOV10 participates in RNA-induced gene silencing, nonsense-mediated decay and suppression of retrotransposition in cultured cells. We describe a critical role for MOV10 in early postnatal brain, where there is an ~40 fold increase in MOV10 protein levels along with a nucleo-cytoplasmic localization pattern. The isolation of MOV10-associated RNAs from this stage showed a preponderance of retrotransposon encoded RNAs along with messenger RNAs. Furthermore, reduced MOV10 expression led to an increase in genomic L1 levels in P2 brain. We show that MOV10 likely suppresses retrotransposition by binding to the LINE1 reverse transcriptase and blocking cDNA synthesis. MOV10 also binds cytoskeletal mRNAs and is required for normal neurite outgrowth in both Neuro2A and cultured hippocampal neurons. Finally, standard MOV10 levels in brain are required for normal mouse behavior. We provide the first evidence of a role for MOV10 in retrotransposon control in brain and in neuronal development and function. Overall design: The analysis includes 8 samples. The wildtype Neuro2a cells have 2 replicates each of differentiated and undifferentiated cells.The remaining 4 are CRISPR-Cas Knockout lines for MOV10 that are have also been differentiated or left undifferentiated. These samples are also in replicates.