YRNAcleave · Sequence and structural requirements for Y RNA cleavage

Sequence and structural requirements for Y RNA cleavage

"Small non-coding RNAs play important roles in gene expression regulation. Initially the attention was focused on the 21-24-nucleotide small RNAs such as microRNAs but later on deeper sequencing experiments using next generation sequencing revealed a slightly longer class of small RNAs that are 30-34 nucleotides long. These longer small RNAs are often generated from known non-coding RNAs such as tRNA or snoRNA. The biogenesis of these longer small RNAs seems to be diverse and is not well understood. The host laboratory have characterised the biogenesis of such longer small RNAs generated from Y RNAs in mammalian cells and found that it is different from microRNA biogenesis but also from the way tRNA derived small RNAs are produced. Y RNAs are ~100 nt long molecules, first discovered owing to their association with the autoimmune proteins Ro60 and La. The four Y RNAs (Y1, Y3, Y4 and Y5) show high evolutionary conversation in the animal kingdom, with humans possessing the full complement of Y RNA genes and some species, such as mouse, only retaining the Y1 and Y3 RNA genes. Y RNAs bind a range of proteins within the cell, notably the toroid shaped protein Ro60 involved in RNA quality control, and the La protein which has a range of implicated functions (Figure 1). Not all Y RNAs however are found within ribonucleoprotein complexes. The non-protein bound Y RNAs have been shown to be essential for the initiation of chromosomal DNA replication by acting as licensing factors in post-midblastula transition (MBT) stage cells. The overall objective of the project is to understand the process of Y RNA fragmentation in human cells. The project consisted of four specific objectives: Objective 1 Validation of sequencing results for pools 1-3, Objective 2 Mutagenesis of 5' arm of Y5 RNA, Objective 3 Validation of mutations in the Y5 5' sRNA region and Objective 4 Testing ""designer"" mutants. We describe the results and conclusions in the next section. "

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз