Cells must coordinate their metabolism and fate trajectories ( 1, 2 ), but the underlying mechanisms are only beginning to be discovered. To understand why the glycolytic enzyme enolase 1 (ENO1) binds RNA ( 3–6 ), we studied this phenomenon in vitro, in human cells, and during mouse embryonic stem cell differentiation. We find specific cellular RNA ligands that inhibit ENO1’s enzymatic activity in vitro. Increasing the concentration of these ligands in cultured cells inhibits glycolysis. We demonstrate that pluripotent stem cells expressing an ENO1 mutant that is hyper-inhibited by RNA are severely impaired in their glycolytic capacity and in endodermal differentiation, whereas cells with an RNA binding-deficient ENO1 mutant display disproportionately high endodermal marker expression. Our findings uncover ENO1 riboregulation as a novel form of metabolic control. They also describe an unprecedented mechanism involved in the regulation of stem cell differentiation.

One Sentence Summary

RNA directly regulates enzyme activity to control metabolism and stem cell fate