Long noncoding RNA GAS5 disrupts intestinal epithelial barrier function by increasing small vault RNA levels.
Disruptions in the integrity of the intestinal epithelium occur commonly in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and critical surgical disorders, but the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. Here we identified long noncoding RNA GAS5 as a repressor of intestinal mucosal growth and the function of the gut epithelial barrier. The levels of tissue GAS5/Gas5 increased in mouse intestinal mucosa after colitis and septic stress, as well as in human intestinal mucosa from patients with IBD. Transient and tissue-specific knockdown of Gas5 in mice using CRISPR/Cas9 enhanced the renewal of the mucosa of the small intestine, increased the levels of tight junction (TJ) proteins ZO-1, ZO-2, claudin-1, and claudin-2, and improved gut barrier function. Conversely, ectopic overexpression of GAS5 in intestinal organoids and in cultured intestinal epithelium cells decreased the levels of these TJ proteins and caused epithelial barrier dysfunction. Mechanistic studies revealed that GAS5 acted as a transcriptional enhancer of the gene (2. AUTHOR: Do you mean "genes"?) encoding small noncoding vault RNAs (vtRNAs) and that GAS5 repressed TJ expression by increasing the levels of vtRNAs. Together, our results indicate that GAS5 disrupts the integrity of the intestinal epithelium by impairing mucosal growth and epithelial barrier function and that it represses TJ expression, at least in part, via vtRNAs.