Cytoplasmic Control of Sense-Antisense mRNA Pairs

•Transcription of convergent coding genes can form mRNA-mRNA duplexes•Cytoplasmic mRNA-mRNA interaction can trigger no-go decay or limit 3′-5′ degradation•Hundreds of mRNA-mRNA interactions are characterized in wild-type cells•mRNA-mRNA interactions are subjected to surveillance by Xrn1

SummaryTranscriptome analyses have revealed that convergent gene transcription can produce many 3′-overlapping mRNAs in diverse organisms. Few studies have examined the fate of 3′-complementary mRNAs in double-stranded RNA-dependent nuclear phenomena, and nothing is known about the cytoplasmic destiny of 3′-overlapping messengers or their impact on gene expression. Here, we demonstrate that the complementary tails of 3′-overlapping mRNAs can interact in the cytoplasm and promote post-transcriptional regulatory events including no-go decay (NGD) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Genome-wide experiments confirm that these messenger-interacting mRNAs (mimRNAs) form RNA duplexes in wild-type cells and thus have potential roles in modulating the mRNA levels of their convergent gene pattern under different growth conditions. We show that the post-transcriptional fate of hundreds of mimRNAs is controlled by Xrn1, revealing the extent to which this conserved 5′-3′ cytoplasmic exoribonuclease plays an unexpected but key role in the post-transcriptional control of convergent gene expression.

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