Tag Archives: University of California

During both development and adulthood, the human brain expresses many thousands of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), and aberrant lncRNA expression has been associated with a wide range of neurological diseases. Although the biological significance of most lncRNAs remains to be discovered, it is now clear that certain lncRNAs carry out important functions in neurodevelopment, neural cell function, and perhaps even ...

Efforts to resolve the transcribed sequences in the equine genome have focused on protein-coding RNA. The transcription of the intergenic regions, although detected via total RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), has yet to be characterized in the horse. The most recent equine transcriptome based on RNA-seq from several tissues was a prime opportunity to obtain a concurrent long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) database. ...

Advances in RNA sequencing technologies have led to the surprising discovery that a vast number of transcripts emanate from regions of the genome that are not part of coding genes. Although some of the smaller ncRNAs such as microRNAs have well-characterized functions, the majority of long ncRNA (lncRNA) functions remain poorly understood. Understanding the significance of lncRNAs is an important ...

Compared to other mammals, humans have the largest cerebral cortex. A sheet of brain cells that folds in on itself multiple times in order to fit inside the skull, the cortex is the seat of higher functions. It is what enables us to process everything we see and hear and think. The expansion of the cerebral cortex sets humans apart ...

Understanding DNA is often viewed as the key to understanding how the human body works, but what if it is actually RNA? Susan Carpenter, PhD of the University of California, Santa Cruz talks with us about her research into long non-coding RNA, and how this foundational science will hopefully lead to a better understanding of inflammation in the human body, ...

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) comprise a diverse class of transcripts that can regulate molecular and cellular processes in brain development and disease. LncRNAs exhibit cell type- and tissue-specific expression, but little is known about the expression and function of lncRNAs in the developing human brain. Furthermore, it has been unclear whether lncRNAs are highly expressed in subsets of cells within ...

Known protein coding gene exons compose less than 3% of the human genome. The remaining 97% is largely uncharted territory, with only a small fraction characterized. The recent observation of transcription in this intergenic territory has stimulated debate about the extent of intergenic transcription and whether these intergenic RNAs are functional. Here, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco ...

Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS), a genetic disorder of obesity, intellectual disability and sleep abnormalities, is caused by loss of noncoding RNAs on paternal chromosome 15q11-q13. The imprinted minimal PWS locus encompasses a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) transcript processed into multiple SNORD116 small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) and the spliced exons of the host gene, 116HG. However, both the molecular function and disease ...

The incidence of lung diseases and cancer caused by cigarette smoke is increasing. The molecular mechanism(s) of gene regulation induced by cigarette smoke that ultimately lead to cancer remains unclear. This report describes a novel long non-coding RNA (LncRNA) that is induced by cigarette smoke extract (CSE) both in vitro and in vivo and is elevated in numerous lung cancer ...

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been described in cell lines and various whole tissues, but lncRNA analysis of development in vivo is limited. Here, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco comprehensively analyze lncRNA expression for the adult mouse subventricular zone neural stem cell lineage. They utilize complementary genome-wide techniques including RNA-Seq, RNA CaptureSeq, and ChIP-seq to associate specific lncRNAs with ...