The non-coding Air RNA is required for silencing autosomal imprinted genes

Frank Sleutels, Ronald Zwart and Denise P. Barlow ()
Additional contact information
Frank Sleutels: The Netherlands Cancer Institute
Ronald Zwart: The Netherlands Cancer Institute
Denise P. Barlow: ÖAW Institute of Molecular Biology

Nature, 2002, vol. 415, issue 6873, 810-813

Abstract: Abstract In genomic imprinting, one of the two parental alleles of an autosomal gene is silenced epigenetically by a cis-acting mechanism1,2. A bidirectional silencer for a 400-kilobase region that contains three imprinted, maternally expressed protein-coding genes (Igf2r/Slc22a2/Slc22a3) has been shown by targeted deletion to be located in a sequence of 3.7 kilobases3,4,5, which also contains the promoter for the imprinted, paternally expressed non-coding Air RNA6. Expression of Air is correlated with repression of all three genes on the paternal allele5; however, Air RNA overlaps just one of these genes in an antisense orientation6. Here we show, by inserting a polyadenylation signal that truncates 96% of the RNA transcript, that Air RNA is required for silencing. The truncated Air allele maintains imprinted expression and methylation of the Air promoter, but shows complete loss of silencing of the Igf2r/Slc22a2/Slc22a3 gene cluster on the paternal chromosome. Our results indicate that non-coding RNAs have an active role in genomic imprinting.

Date: 2002
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/415810a Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nature:v:415:y:2002:i:6873:d:10.1038_415810a

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

DOI: 10.1038/415810a

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

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