CSHL scientists find a new class of small RNAs and define it...(ctions in living cells and to hunt down ...)

Date:1/26/2009

ctions in living cells and to hunt down their location amidst the thicket of genes and non-coding DNA, a multinational project known as ENCODE (an acronym for Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) was initiated in 2003. Recent research by Professor Gingeras, who has played a major role in the project, has revealed that nearly all of the genome is converted into various types of RNA molecules, a process once thought to be restricted to protein-coding genes. What roles, if any, each of these new types of RNA play within the cell is now an important topic of research.

The world of small RNAs gets bigger

As one of the hubs of ENCODE, Gingeras's laboratory at CSHL is part of the effort to catalogue the entire long and short RNA output of cells. Focusing on two ENCODE- targeted human cell lines in the newly announced results, Gingeras's group, in collaboration with Hannon's laboratory, used powerful genome-sequencing techniques to zoom in on small RNA molecules and select potentially new types of RNA for further analysis.

Small RNAs are one RNA subtype among several that have been discovered during the last decade. As a group, they are distinguished by the fact that they do not "code" for proteins, and are physically smaller than coding RNAs. In the small RNA group selected by the CSHL scientists for further analysis, an abundant type is one that Gingeras's group recently identified as arising specifically from transcription start sites gene regions also known as promoters, where the synthesis of protein-coding RNA molecules begins.

These promoter-associated small RNAs, or PASRs, can be contrasted with a new species just discovered by Gingeras, Hannon and colleagues, a type they call non-PASRs. The latter originate at sites distant from those where PASRs are generated. Both types of small RNAs were observed to have undergone "capping," a chemical modification that makes them stable and impervious to degradation. "This quality," Ha
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Contact: Peter Tarr tarr@cshl.edu 516-367-8455 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Source:Eurekalert

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