Fatty Acid Synthase Binds Cellular mRNAs and its Depletion Reduces Translational Efficiency

Fatty acid synthase (FASN) shows an endogenous RNA interactome in two human cell lines, binding over 6000 sites across 3500+ protein-coding genes with strong 5' UTR preference.

• Why it matters: Non-canonical RNA binding by metabolic enzymes is increasingly linked to biology and disease, but FASN’s direct endogenous RNA targets and translational impact were unclear.
• What they did: Using crosslinking-based mapping, the study identified FASN-associated binding sites and then performed a functional cross-screen with ribosome profiling after FASN depletion.
• The result: FASN depletion preferentially reduces translational efficiencies of FASN-associated mRNAs, depending on binding location and site number, and the associated transcripts are enriched for morphogenic/cell division functions and palmitoylated proteins.

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