Cloning Of C. Elegans

This sequence lets scientists know the character and location of all C. elegans' genes. However, biochemists do not yet fully understand what each gene does and the goal of this experiment is to find the function of each gene within the worm. The connection between a worm's genotype and phenotype is important, because, believe it or not, human beings and worms share many of the same

In the second paper, “Novel RNA Modifications in the Nervous System: Form and Function,” Lee discusses the role of several novel RNA modification in the physiological setting of the nervous system. RNA editing plays a major role in many pathologies; for example, loss of normal function in an m6a demethylase, FTO, has been connected with cancer, ADHD, and Alzheimer’s. Other RNA modifications are necessary for proper development of the central nervous system. NSUN2 is an m5C RNA modification heavily implicated in embryogenesis, especially in the brain. Mutation of the NSUN2 gene is correlated with intellectual disability, developmental delay, and facial dysmorphism. The aforementioned A-to-I RNA edit is also enriched in the brain, and is necessary for the proper function of genes such as GluA2, which without modification leads to postnatal death. GluA2 is also implicated in glutamate reception by neurons, and consequently in the mechanisms of addiction. Furthermore, A-to-I RNA editing failure been linked with several chronic diseases, including

This study shows that 6% of the entire annotated non-coding and coding gene transcripts are overlapping with small RNAs. Highly specific subcellular positioning is found for both unannotated & annotated short RNA.

To understand epigenetics and transgenerational epigenetics in greater detail we need to obtain a clearer picture of the underlying molecular mechanisms. Lim and Brunet (2013) revealed that environmental stimuli can influence the chromatin structure by noncoding RNAs- including siRNA (small interfering RNA, worm), piRNA ((Piwi-interacting RNA, worm and fly), viRNA (small interfering RNAs derived from virus, worm), miRNA (micro RNA, mice)- DNA methylation (mice, rat) and histone modification (with the help of Histone methyltransferase poteins)- H3K4me2/3 (worm), H3K36me3 (worm), H3K36me3 (worm, fly), H3K9me2/3 (worm, fly), H3K27me3 (mice, human). Prion proteins might also play role (yeast). These changes might influence the metabolics, which changes the expression of different chemicals and are themselves potential environmental stress factors; thus, they could initiate epigenomic changes. Chromatin modifications

The development of 19 to 22-nucleotide siRNAs specifically recognizing particular mRNA sequences provides new powerful reagents to selectively down-regulate gene expression and holds great potential not only for the analysis of

Several databases indicated that miR-138-5p could target LIMK1, such as TargetScan, PicTar and miRwalk, to regulate LIMK1/CFL1 signal pathway to function as a

Most studies of miRNA effects utilise miRNA target prediction algorithms to identify mRNA targets, and then assess these using biochemical methods. When studying AF it seems obvious that only certain genes need to be focused on, especially in the case of electrical

siRNA’s are derived from longer double stranded RNA’s that are produced in the cell itself or can be delivered into cells experimentally. The introduction of siRNA’s are used to manipulate gene expression. Most microRNA’s come from RNA that is transcribed in the nucleus, which fold into double stranded precursor microRNA’s and are processed before being exported into the cytoplasm. Both siRNA and microRNA bind to Dicer, in order to cut the RNA into short 21 nucleotide long segments and then are incorporated into RISC. The only difference between siRNA and microRNA is where they originate from, other than that they can perform the same function. This is important because siRNA can be injected into the cell, which could be key to finding a cure to a disease or

The remaining clean reads were aligned to miRBase database (www.mirbase.org/) using BLAST to identify 393 and 362 known miRNAs from FGSC9543 and CDC8219, respectively (Suppl. F1). In addition, the reads that were mapped to antisense exon, intron, or intergenic region of the genome, but not to any other RNAs, lead to the identification of 167 and 164 novel miRNAs, respectively, from these two strains (Suppl. F1).

microRNAs (miRNAs/miRs) are a unique class of short (∼22 nucleotides) single stranded endogenous noncoding RNAs (7, 8). miRNAs contain nucleotide sequences complementary to binding sites on the 3′ untranslated regions (3′ UTRs) of protein-coding messenger RNA (mRNA) transcripts. Through direct binding to the mRNA 3′-UTRs, miRNAs can induce repression of target gene expression (57). Individual miRNAs can often engage

LncRNAs can arise from several different processes; for example, it is possible for local tandem repeat sequences and retro-transposition of non-coding RNA to create lncRNAs (Lee 2012; Clark and Blackshaw 2014). Disruption of coding proteins gene frames can also result in lncRNAs, such as Lnx3 from the Xist gene (Zhu et al. 2013). The formation of new lncRNAs can also arise from the decay of protein coding genes, duplication of other lncRNAs or de novo evolution from previous noncoding sequences, the last of which is the most common (Kapusta and Feschotte 2014). A large proportion of lncRNAs, around 60% in human and murine ES cells, are synthesised from bidirectional transcription at protein coding promoter sites (Kapusta and Feschotte 2014). Other factors that result in the synthesis of lncRNA include transposable elements (TE); in fact, 2 out of 3 lncRNAs transcripts in humans and mice contain at least one TE sequence, which can be found in 20-40% of all lncRNA exonic nucleotides (Kapusta and Feschotte 2014).

One of the fundamental discoveries of the 20th century was that DNA was the genetic code’s physical structure (Watson & Crick, 1953) and, since then, many studies have disclosed the complicated pattern of regulation and expression of genes, which involve RNA synthesis and its subsequent translation into proteins.

In Elbashir, Lendeckel, and Tuschl’s article, they explore how 21- and 22-nucleotides RNAs mediate RNA interference by using an in vitro Drosophila system; this article is still referenced today as an authoritative source for RNAi research They show that the

Caenorhabditis elegans have two loci encoding the chaperone Grp170, Grp170a and Grp170b. During ER stress, these two Grp loci are expressed differently in C. elegans (Rockwell 2015). The expression of grp170 mRNA was analyzed in nematodes deficient for either loci; the results

This has resulted in defining a class of non-coding functional elements that include: promoters, enhancers, silencers, insulators, and noncoding RNA genes such as microRNAs, piRNAs, structural RNAs, and regulatory RNAs. These elements are associated with chromatin structures and, are under influence from DNA methylation, acetylation, transcription factor/cofactor binding, chromatin regulating proteins and DNase. These factors provide a biochemical marker for potential regulatory elements which may possibly have function, but to the degree of which these factors/modifications indicate the sequence’s function is still unclear. (6)