Natural antisense transcript: a concomitant engagement with protein-coding transcript. Oncotarget 2010 Oct;1(6):447-52
Date
02/12/2011Pubmed ID
21311100Pubmed Central ID
PMC3248111DOI
10.18632/oncotarget.178Scopus ID
2-s2.0-79957523447 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 51 CitationsAbstract
The vertebrate genome contains large spans of non-coding RNA, which for the most part were considered of little functional value to the organism. Recent studies have indicated that vertebrate genomes may have stored hidden secrets in this large span of non-coding RNA, which we refer to here as "Natural Antisense Transcripts (NATs)." NATs can be found in introns, exons, promoters, enhancers, intergenic sequences, and untranslated regions of the genome. They can be located in either the plus or minus DNA strand. NATs utilize several mechanisms that include DNA replication interference, chromatin remodeling, transcriptional interference, RNA masking, double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-dependent mechanisms and translation interference to mechanistically regulate gene expression. Recently, NAT levels have been identified as dysregulated in various disease states. This review presents an overview of the current state of NAT biology and highlights the main points with specific examples.
Author List
Li K, Ramchandran RAuthors
Keguo Li MD, PhD Research Scientist I in the Surgery department at Medical College of WisconsinRamani Ramchandran PhD Professor in the Pediatrics department at Medical College of Wisconsin
MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AnimalsExons
Gene Expression Regulation
Humans
RNA, Antisense
RNA, Untranslated
Transcription, Genetic
