Jen, C.H., Michalopoulos, I., Westhead, D.R. et al. (1 more author) (2005) Natural antisense transcripts with coding capacity in Arabidopsis may have a regulatory role that is not linked to double-stranded RNA degradation. Genome Biology, 6 (6(R51)). ISSN 1465-6914
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Overlapping transcripts in antisense orientation have the potential to form double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), a substrate for a number of different RNA-modification pathways. One prominent route for dsRNA is its breakdown by Dicer enzyme complexes into small RNAs, a pathway that is widely exploited by RNA interference technology to inactivate defined genes in transgenic lines. The significance of this pathway for endogenous gene regulation remains unclear.
RESULTS: We have examined transcription data for overlapping gene pairs in Arabidopsis thaliana. On the basis of an analysis of transcripts with coding regions, we find the majority of overlapping gene pairs to be convergently overlapping pairs (COPs), with the potential for dsRNA formation. In all tissues, COP transcripts are present at a higher frequency compared to the overall gene pool. The probability that both the sense and antisense copy of a COP are co-transcribed matches the theoretical value for coexpression under the assumption that the expression of one partner does not affect the expression of the other. Among COPs, we observe an over-representation of spliced (intron-containing) genes (90%) and of genes with alternatively spliced transcripts. For loci where antisense transcripts overlap with sense transcript introns, we also find a significant bias in favor of alternative splicing and variation of polyadenylation.
CONCLUSION: The results argue against a predominant RNA degradation effect induced by dsRNA formation. Instead, our data support alternative roles for dsRNAs. They suggest that at least for a subgroup of COPs, antisense expression may induce alternative splicing or polyadenylation.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2005 Jen et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | genome studies, molecular biology |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Molecular and Cellular Biology (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology (Leeds) > Centre for Plant Sciences (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Sherpa Assistant |
Date Deposited: | 15 Mar 2006 |
Last Modified: | 27 Oct 2016 02:15 |
Published Version: | http://genomebiology.com/2005/6/6/R51 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1186/gb-2005-6-6-r51 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:930 |