mRNA 3' UTRs chaperone intrinsically disordered regions to control protein activity.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 42259285.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1016/j.cell.2026.05.017.
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Abstract
More than 2,700 human mRNA 3' UTRs have hundreds of highly conserved nucleotides, but their biological roles are unclear. These mRNAs encode proteins strongly enriched for long intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) with hydrophobic amino acid clusters. For MYC, UTX, and JMJD3, we show that their mRNA 3' UTRs control protein activity. Rather than affecting protein abundance or localization, we find that the KDM6B 3' UTR co-translationally changes the folding of JMJD3 protein. It promotes IDR-IDR interactions and suppresses folding between domains, suggesting that RNA has IDR chaperone activity that prevents interference between hydrophobic clusters in the IDR with folding of the structured domain. 3' UTRs with chaperone activity are multivalent and mesh-like condensate-enriched, indicating the presence of localized folding environments for IDR-containing proteins. We show here that the protein sequence is insufficient for the biogenesis of fully active IDR-containing transcriptional regulators in cells, suggesting that mRNA 3' UTRs control their activity by preventing co-translational misfolding.