Identification of TERRA locus unveils a telomere protection role through association to nearly all chromosomes

Isabel López de Silanes, Osvaldo Graña, Maria Luigia De Bonis, Orlando Dominguez, David G Pisano and Maria A Blasco ()
Additional contact information
Isabel López de Silanes: Telomeres and Telomerase Group, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO)
Osvaldo Graña: Bioinformatics Unit, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO)
Maria Luigia De Bonis: Telomeres and Telomerase Group, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO)
Orlando Dominguez: Genomics Unit, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO)
David G Pisano: Bioinformatics Unit, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO)
Maria A Blasco: Telomeres and Telomerase Group, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO)

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Telomeric RNAs (TERRAs) are UUAGGG repeat-containing RNAs that are transcribed from the subtelomere towards the telomere. The precise genomic origin of TERRA has remained elusive. Using a whole-genome RNA-sequencing approach, we identify novel mouse transcripts arising mainly from the subtelomere of chromosome 18, and to a lesser extend chromosome 9, that resemble TERRA in several key aspects. Those transcripts contain UUAGGG-repeats and are heterogeneous in size, fluctuate in abundance in a TERRA-like manner during the cell cycle, are bound by TERRA RNA-binding proteins and are regulated in a manner similar to TERRA in response to stress and the induction of pluripotency. These transcripts are also found to associate with nearly all chromosome ends and downregulation of the transcripts that originate from chromosome 18 causes a reduction in TERRA abundance. Interestingly, downregulation of either chromosome 18 transcripts or TERRA results in increased number of telomere dysfunction-induced foci, suggesting a protective role at telomeres.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms5723 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms5723

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5723

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().