Biomedical subjects

Rodrigo Louro

Publications and source records attributed to Rodrigo Louro.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

As antisense RNA gets intronic.

Recent work describing the transcriptional output of the human genome points to the existence of a significant number of non-coding RNA transcripts coming from intronic regions, with a fraction of these being oriented antisense relative to the protein-coding mRNA of the known gene. In this article, we survey the main findings of the large-scale expression analysis projects that led to the identification of antisense intronic messages and which demonstrate their ubiquitous expression in the human genome. We review the current knowledge on long, unspliced, intronic antisense transcripts, a new class of non-coding RNAs, recently described by our group to be correlated with the degree of tumor differentiation in prostate cancer, which we postulate is involved in the fine tuning of gene expression in eukaryotes. Possible mechanisms of antisense intronic transcript biogenesis and function in gene expression regulation are discussed, as is their involvement in human diseases. While there is still no conclusive evidence demonstrating a functional role for these long, intronic antisense messages, the far-reaching implications of their existence for the mechanisms regulating gene expression certainly warrant further experimentation.

Alternative Splicing↗

PubMed2004

Antisense intronic non-coding RNA levels correlate to the degree of tumor differentiation in prostate cancer.

A large fraction of transcripts are expressed antisense to introns of known genes in the human genome. Here we show the construction and use of a cDNA microarray platform enriched in intronic transcripts to assess their biological relevance in pathological conditions. To validate the approach, prostate cancer was used as a model, and 27 patient tumor samples with Gleason scores ranging from 5 to 10 were analyzed. We find that a considerably higher fraction (6.6%, [23/346]) of intronic transcripts are significantly correlated (P< or =0.001) to the degree of prostate tumor differentiation (Gleason score) when compared to transcripts from unannotated genomic regions (1%, [6/539]) or from exons of known genes (2%, [27/1369]). Among the top twelve transcripts most correlated to tumor differentiation, six are antisense intronic messages as shown by orientation-specific RT-PCR or Northern blot analysis with strand-specific riboprobe. Orientation-specific real-time RT-PCR with six tumor samples, confirmed the correlation (P=0.024) between the low/high degrees of tumor differentiation and antisense intronic RASSF1 transcript levels. The need to use intron arrays to reveal the transcriptome profile of antisense intronic RNA in cancer has clearly emerged.

Cell Differentiation↗

PubMed2004

RASL11A, member of a novel small monomeric GTPase gene family, is down-regulated in prostate tumors.

We performed a genome-wide search for novel loci encoding for Ras-related proteins based on the genome mapping coordinates of the cancer-derived EST dataset at GenBank. Partial sequences from two novel human genes were identified and subsequently used for full length transcript cloning. RASL11A and ARL9 belong to two novel subfamilies coding for small GTPases that we found to be highly conserved among eukaryotes. The Arl9/Arl10 subfamily displays a conserved interswitch toggle that places it evolutionarily closer to the Arf family. Rasl11 proteins are more closely related to the Ras branch of GTPases. All orthologues newly identified here exhibit an Asn residue in place of the highly conserved Thr35 of the G domain, suggesting that the universal switch mechanism of small GTPases may be structurally different in this subfamily. We determined by Northern blot that RASL11A is transcribed in several human tissues and that it is down-regulated in prostate tumors as measured by quantitative real-time PCR. These results highlight a previously uncharacterized subfamily of Ras-related genes that may have a tumor suppressor role in prostate cancer.

ADP-Ribosylation Factors↗