Long Noncoding RNAs with Enhancer-like Function in Human Cells

Overview

Journal Cell

Publisher Cell Press

Specialty Cell Biology

Date 2010 Oct 5

PMID 20887892

Citations 1018

Authors

Ulf Andersson Orom

Thomas Derrien

Malte Beringer

Kiranmai Gumireddy

Alessandro Gardini

Giovanni Bussotti

Fan Lai

Matthias Zytnicki

Cedric Notredame

Qihong Huang

Roderic Guigo

Ramin Shiekhattar

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

While the long noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) constitute a large portion of the mammalian transcriptome, their biological functions has remained elusive. A few long ncRNAs that have been studied in any detail silence gene expression in processes such as X-inactivation and imprinting. We used a GENCODE annotation of the human genome to characterize over a thousand long ncRNAs that are expressed in multiple cell lines. Unexpectedly, we found an enhancer-like function for a set of these long ncRNAs in human cell lines. Depletion of a number of ncRNAs led to decreased expression of their neighboring protein-coding genes, including the master regulator of hematopoiesis, SCL (also called TAL1), Snai1 and Snai2. Using heterologous transcription assays we demonstrated a requirement for the ncRNAs in activation of gene expression. These results reveal an unanticipated role for a class of long ncRNAs in activation of critical regulators of development and differentiation.

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