A gene expression restriction network mediated by sense and antisense Alu sequences located on protein-coding messenger RNAs

作者：Liang Kung Hao; Yeh Chau Ting^*

来源：BMC Genomics, 2013, 14(1): 325.

DOI：10.1186/1471-2164-14-325

• Antisense Alu
• Gene expression restriction
• Double-stranded Alu
• Alu-carrying protein-coding RNA

Background: Alus are primate-specific retrotransposons which account for 10.6% of the human genome. A large number of protein-coding mRNAs are encoded with sense or antisense Alus in the un-translated regions. %26lt;br%26gt;Results: We postulated that mRNAs carrying Alus in the two opposite directions can generate double stranded RNAs, capable of regulating the levels of other Alu-carrying mRNAs post-transcriptionally. A gene expression profiling assay showed that the levels of antisense and sense Alus-carrying mRNAs were suppressed in a reversible manner by over-expression of exogenous sense and antisense Alus derived from mRNAs (Family-wise error rate P= 0.0483 and P %26lt; 0.0001 respectively). Screening through human mRNAs on the NCBI-RefSeq database, it was found that sense and antisense Alu-carrying transcripts were enriched in distinct cellular functions. Antisense Alu-carrying genes were particularly enriched in neurological and developmental processes, while sense Alu-carrying genes were enriched in immunological functions. %26lt;br%26gt;Conclusions: Taken together, we proposed a novel Alu-mediated regulation network capable of stabilizing Alu-carrying mRNA levels in different cell types and restricting the activated expression levels of protein-coding, Alu-carrying mRNAs.

• 出版日期2013-5-11
• 单位长春大学