Mycobacterium tuberculosis modulates NUDT21-mediated alternative polyadenylation to enhance FTH1 expression in macrophages and promotes intracellular growth
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Ferritin heavy chain 1 (FTH1) is a key iron-storage protein that regulates iron availability, supports immune defense, and prevents iron-induced toxicity. During Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection, macrophages enhance FTH1 expression to sequestrate iron and limit Mtb growth. However, Mtb can exploit the host ferritinophagy pathway to degrade FTH1 and release iron, thereby promoting its survival. Although FTH1 plays an essential role in host–pathogen interaction during Mtb infection, its regulation remains unclear. Previous studies suggest that post-transcriptional mechanism, particularly alternative polyadenylation (APA), are critical in immune responses. We propose that APA, which determines the length of a transcript’s 3′UTR, may regulate FTH1 expression during Mtb infection. Our study demonstrates that Mtb induces APA of FTH1 in macrophages, favoring the production of longer isoforms that enhance protein synthesis. Mechanistically, Mtb disrupts the interaction between NUDT21 and CPSF6, impairing NUDT21’s ability to bind UGUA motifs in the FTH1 3′UTR, a key step in polyadenylation site selection. Silencing NUDT21 reduces macrophage bactericidal activity against Mtb, highlighting its role in immune defense. These findings reveal a novel Mtb-driven mechanism that enhances FTH1 expression via the NUDT21-mediated APA pathway in macrophages, suggesting that Mtb manipulates this process to promote its survival. This study provides new insights into tuberculosis pathogenesis and points to potential avenues for therapeutic exploration.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".