A novel method for ionizing radiation-induced RNA damage detection by poly（A）-tailing RT-PCR

Ionizing radiation (IR) causes severe cellular damage both directly and indirectly and disrupts RNA integrity. RNA strand breaks are the most frequent type of damage caused by IR. RNA damage is involved in the development of degenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. However, the mechanism of mRNA damage and any resulting pathophysiological outcomes are poorly understood. This is partly because there is a lack of sensitive tools to monitor damage randomly occurring in RNA,...     

Interaction of Mg-Rich Montmorillonite with Nucleic Acid Bases and Sugar

Because of their ability to adsorb, concentrate and catalyze the polymerization of organic molecules, clay minerals might have played a key role in the molecular origins of life. RNA is one of the most important biopolymers in the early earth （RNA world） since protein and DNA appear to have derived later from RNA. The unit nucleotide in RNA consists of a purine or pyrimidine base, a ribose and a phosphate group.     

Noncoding RNAs: Different roles in tumorigenesis

A major portion of the mammalian genome is transcribed to produce large numbers of noncoding RNAs(ncRNAs).During the past decade,the discovery of small RNAs,including the microRNAs(miRNA) and small interfering RNAs(siRNA),has led to important advances in biology.The breadth of the ncRNA field of study has substantially expanded and many recent results have revealed a range of functions that can be attributed to the miRNAs and other ncRNAs.For example,H19 RNA,HOTAIR RNA,transcribed ultraconserved regions(T-UCRs),natural antisense RNA,transfer RNA and mitochondrial noncoding RNA have been suggested to play important roles in cancers and other diseases as well as in diverse cellular processes.In this review,we focus on the current status of several classes of ncRNAs associated with cancer with the emphasis on those that are not microRNAs.     

Effects of STAT3 antisense RNA on IL-6-induced differentiation and growth arrest of Ml leukemia cells

To investigate the biological roles of STAT3 in the regulation of growth and differentiation of leukemia cells, we modified a murine myeloid leukemia cell line Ml with STAT3 antisense RNA. The effects of STAT3 antisense RNA on the growth arrest and terminal differentiation of Ml cells induced by interleukin 6 (IL-6) were determined. It was found that STAT3 antisense RNA blocked the activation of STAT3, and reduced the growth arrest and terminal differentiation of IL-6-induced Ml leukemia cells. These results indicate that STAT3 activation is a necessary process for IL-6-induced growth arrest of Ml cells and for the differentiation of Ml cells into macrophage.     

A simple and effective method for total RNA isolation of appressoria in Magnaporthe oryzae

Appressorium formation is an important event in establishing a successful interaction between the rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae, and its host plant, rice. An understanding of molecular events occurring in appressorium differentiation will give new strategies to control rice blast. A quick and reliable method to extract total RNA from appressorium is essential for studying gene expression during appressorium formation and its mechanism. We found that duplicate film is an efficient substratum for appressorium formation, even when inoculated with high density conidia. When inoculated with conidia at 1 × 106 ml^-1, the percentages of conidium germination and appressorium formation were （97.98±0.67）% and （97.88±0.45）%, respectively. We applied Trizol before appressorium collection for total RNA isolation, and as much as 113.6 lag total RNA was isolated from the mature appressoria at 24 h after inoculation. Functional analysis of two genes, MNH6 and MgATG1, isolated from the cDNA subtractive library, revealed that the quantity of RNA was good enough to construct a cDNA （complementary DNA） library or a cDNA subtractive library. This method may be also applicable for the appressorium RNA isolation of other pathogenic fungi in which conidia differentiate into appressoria in the early stages of host infection.     

Environmental RNA interference in animals

Animals interact with their environments all the time, and must react to all kinds of factors present in the environments. Environmen- tal RNA interference refers to the phenomenon that exogenous RNA molecules can enter cells of certain animal species and inter- fere with gene expression of these animals. These exogenous RNAs may be molecules in animal food, or may be present in the living environment from other sources. Molecular pathways for the cell entry of environmental RNAs and further for their func- tionality in gene interference have started to be revealed in the animal model Caenorhabditis elegans. Here we highlight some known examples of environmental RNA interference （RNAi） in animals and introduce the molecular mechanisms underneath.     

Suppressor of RNA silencing encoded by Rice gall dwarf virus genome segment 11

Rice gall dwarf virus （RGDV） is an important rice pathogen in China and Southeast Asia. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms of RGDV interactions with plant cells. Here, we have identified an RGDV protein, Pns11, which acts as a suppressor of RNA silencing in coinfiltration assays with the reporter, green fluorescent protein （GFP）in transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana line 16c carrying GFP. Pns11 suppressed local and systemic silencing induced by sense RNA. The spread of mobile RNA silencing signals was blocked or inactivated by Pns11. Expression of Pns11 also enhanced Potato virus X pathogenicity in IV. benthamiana. This suppressor could reduce, but not eliminate, siRNA in the local and systemic RNA silencing suppression assays, suggesting that Pns11 functions by interfering with initial stages of RNA silencing.     

Delayed resistance to Cucumber mosaic virus mediated by 3′ UTR-derived hairpin RNA

RNA silencing has been shown to function in the plant antivirus defense response,leading to viral RNA degradation induced by vsiRNA-containing RISC cleavage activity.Cucumber mosaic virus(CMV) 3′UTR sequences share a high conservation of nucleotide sequence and secondary structures that are important for CMV replication.Here,in an attempt to simultaneously target the multiple genomic and subgenomic RNAs of CMV for degradation,CMV 3′UTR were used to design hairpin RNA(hpRNA) to transform tobacco(Xanthi.nc) so as to constitutively produce viral siRNAs.Most of the transgenic plants expressing CMV Q strain(Q-CMV,subgroup Ⅱ strain) RNA3 3′UTR-derived hpRNA showed de-layed resistance to Q-CMV infection and exhibited recovery phenotypes.Compared with Q-CMV-in-oculated leaves,the upper leaves showed weak or no disease symptoms and a reduced accumulation level of viral RNAs.Together with transient assays,our results indicate that the 3′UTR-derived siRNAs were biologically active in targeting viral RNA for degradation.Recovery resistance in transgenic plants was also observed against subgroup IB strain SD-CMV infection,indicating a broad-spectrum anti-CMV effect of the 3′UTR-based antiviral silencing.Northern blot assays indicated that there was no strong correlation between the degree of resistance and the accumulation level of 3′UTR-derived siRNAs,suggesting that to target a highly structured RNA,such as the CMV 3′UTR,the quantity of siRNAs may not be the only determinant of silencing efficiency.Target RNA secondary structures may also affect target accessibility,siRNA-containing RISC-target recognition and the consequent antiviral effect.     

Delayed resistance to Cucumber mosaic virus mediated by 3’UTR-derived hairpin RNA

RNA silencing has been shown to function in the plant antivirus defense response, leading to viral RNA degradation induced by vsiRNA-containing RISC cleavage activity. Cucumber mosaic virus （CMV） 3′UTR sequences share a high conservation of nucleotide sequence and secondary structures that are important for CMV replication. Here, in an attempt to simultaneously target the multiple genomic and subgenomic RNAs of CMV for degradation, CMV 3′UTR were used to design hairpin RNA （hpRNA） to transform tobacco （Xanthi. nc） so as to constitutively produce viral siRNAs. Most of the transgenic plants expressing CMV Q strain （Q-CMV, subgroup Ⅱ strain） RNA3 3′UTR-derived hpRNA showed delayed resistance to Q-CMV infection and exhibited recovery phenotypes. Compared with Q-CMV-inoculated leaves, the upper leaves showed weak or no disease symptoms and a reduced accumulation level of viral RNAs. Together with transient assays, our results indicate that the 3′UTR-derived siRNAs were biologically active in targeting viral RNA for degradation. Recovery resistance in transgenic plants was also observed against subgroup IB strain SD-CMV infection, indicating a broad-spectrum anti-CMV effect of the 3′UTR-based antiviral silencing. Northern blot assays indicated that there was no strong correlation between the degree of resistance and the accumulation level of 3′UTR-derived siRNAs, suggesting that to target a highly structured RNA, such as the CMV 3′UTR, the quantity of siRNAs may not be the only determinant of silencing efficiency. Target RNA secondary structures may also affect target accessibility, siRNA-containing RISC-target recognition and the consequent antiviral effect.     

发现一类新型环状非编码RNA

<正>非编码RNA(核糖核酸),被称为生命体中"暗物质"。之前我们看到的RNA都是线状的,日前,中国科学技术大学单革教授实验室发现一类新型环状非编码RNA,并揭示了此类非编码RNA的功能和功能机制。研究成果发表在Nature Structural and Molecular Biology上。     

Algebraic characterization of RNA operations for DNA-based computation

Any RNA strand can be presented by a word in the language X*, where X={A,C,G,U}. By encoding A as 010, C as 000, G as 111, and U as 101, the RNA operations can be considered as the performance of concatenation, union, reverse, complement, in terms of the algebraic characterization. The concatenation and union play the roles of multiplication and addition over some algebraic structures, respectively. The rest of the operations turn out to be the homomorphisms or anti-homomorphisms of these algebraic structures. Using this technique, we find the relationship among these RNA operations.     

Progresses in studies of nuclear actin

Actin is a protein abundant in cells. Recently, it has been proved to be universally existent in the nuclei of many cell types. Actin and actin-binding proteins, as well as aetin-related proteins, are necessary for the mediation of the conformation and function of nuclear actin, including the transformation of actin between unpolymerized and polymerized, chromatin remodeling, regulation of gene expression and RNA processing as well as RNA transportation. In this paper, we summarized the progresses in the research of nuclear actin.     

Z25, a novel intronic snoRNA encoded in mammalian nucleolin gene

A novel intronic small nucleolar RNA ( snoRNA) , termed Z25, was identified from mammals by-computer analysis and experimental sequence methods. Z25 is a 69 nucleotides long RNA containing typical boxC/D motifs, terminal stem and an 11-nucleotide sequence complementary to 18S rRNA. In theory, Z25 functions as an RNA guide for the 2'-0-ribose methylation of adenine at position 1678 (human 18S rRNA coordinate) in 18S rRNA. Z25 snoRNA gene was found to be located in the fifth intron of nucleolin gene of human, mouse and rat, demonstrating that the mammalian nucleoline gene is a host gene encoding multiple snoRNAs.     

人乳头瘤病毒可以引发头颈部癌

Harald zuk Hausen教授（Deutsches Krebsforschungsz entrum，Heidelberg，Germany）在性传播性人乳头瘤病毒（HPV）和子宫颈癌方面所做的工作使其和他人分享了2008年诺贝尔医学奖。20世纪70年代Hausen教授开始该领域的研究时，流行的观念认为单纯疱疹病毒是子宫颈癌的可能病因。