Studying nuclear functions of aminoacyl tRNA synthetases

Abstract

Aminoacyl tRNA synthetases (AARSs) are best known for their essential role in translation in the cytoplasm. The concept that AARSs also exist in the nucleus started to draw attention around the turn of the new millennium, when aminoacylated tRNAs were first found in the nuclei of Xenopus oocytes. It is now expected that all cytoplasmic AARSs are present in the nucleus. In addition to tRNA aminoacylation, nuclear AARSs were found to regulate a spectrum of biological processes and responses, with many AARSs functioning through regulation at the level of gene transcription. In this paper, we focus on describing methods that have been successfully implemented to study AARSs in transcriptional regulation. These include a cell fractionation assay to detect nuclear localization, an in vitro DNA-cellulose pull-down assay to determine DNA binding capacity, and a chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-DNA deep sequencing assay to identify DNA binding sites. Application of these methods would expand our understanding of AARS functions and reveal critical insights on the coordination of gene transcription and translation.