RNA can largely coordinate gene activity

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered that RNA can coordinate gene activity across vast portions of the human genome – a cell’s genetic blueprint. The study also suggests that RNA may play an important role in cancer development and stem cell maintenance. The researchers used a new type of gene chip called a tiling array in their study. “We were surprised to find that at least one of these molecules can suppress genes on a completely different chromosome. This opens up the whole genome to potential regulation by ncRNAs,” said Howard Chang, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of dermatology at Stanford University School of Medicine. “I like to think of it as genomic scuba diving," said John Rinn, a postdoctoral scholar in Chang's laboratory. "It gives us an up-close, unbiased view of what's actually happening at the chromosomal level." The findings of this study will have important implications for cancer therapies and stem cell research.

Scientists at the Rockefeller University, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Cancer Institute found that the protein, ATM, which is vital for helping repair double-stranded breaks in DNA of immune cells, is also a part of a system that prevents damage from being passed on during cell division. The findings of the study show that in the absence of ATM protein, the chromosomal breaks created during a process immune cells undergo called V(D)J recombination go unrepaired, and checkpoints that normally prevent the damaged cell from replicating are lost. “I think it's important to understand them because eventually we might be able to prevent these dangerous chromosome fusions,” said Michel Nussenzweig, Sherman Fairchild Professor and head of the Laboratory in Molecular Immunology.

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