QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

Vol. 18, Issue 8, 2817-2827, August 2007

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplemental Material All Versions of this Article: E06-10-0920v1 18/8/2817    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Royo, H. Articles by Cavaillé, J. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Royo, H. Articles by Cavaillé, J.

Bsr, a Nuclear-retained RNA with Monoallelic Expression

Hélène Royo^*, Eugenia Basyuk, Virginie Marty^*, Maud Marques^*,, Edouard Bertrand, and Jérôme Cavaillé^*

*Laboratoire de Biologie Moléculaire Eucaryote-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unité Mixte de Recherche 5095, Institut d'Exploration Fonctionnelle des Génomes 109, 31062 Cedex Toulouse, France; and Institut Génétique Moléculaire Montpellier-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unité Mixte de Recherche 5535, Université Montpellier II, 34293 Montpellier Cedex 5, France

Submitted October 16, 2006; Revised April 27, 2007; Accepted May 4, 2007
Monitoring Editor: A. Gregory Matera

The imprinted Dlk1-Gtl2 and Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) regions are characterized by a complex noncoding transcription unit spanning arrays of tandemly repeated C/D RNA genes. These noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) are thought to play an essential but still poorly understood role. To better understand the intracellular fate of these large ncRNAs, fluorescence in situ hybridization was carried out at the rat Dlk1-Gtl2 domain. This locus contains a 100-kb-long gene cluster comprising 86 homologous RBII-36 C/D RNA gene copies, all of them intron-encoded within the ncRNA gene Bsr. Here, we demonstrate that the Bsr gene is monoallelically expressed in primary rat embryonic fibroblasts as well as in hypothalamic neurons and yields a large amount of unspliced and spliced RNAs at the transcription site, mostly as elongated RNA signals. Surprisingly, spliced Bsr RNAs released from the transcription site mainly concentrate as numerous, stable nuclear foci that do not colocalize with any known subnuclear structures. On drug treatments, a fraction of Bsr RNA relocalizes to the cytoplasm and associates with stress granules (SGs), but not with P-bodies, pointing to a potential link between SGs and the metabolism of ncRNA. Thus, Bsr might represent a novel type of nuclear-retained transcript.

The online version of this article contains supplemental material at MBC Online (http://www.molbiolcell.org).

Present address: Département de Biologie, Faculté des Sciences Université de Sherbrooke, 2500 Boulevard de l'Université Sherbrooke, Québec, J1K 2R1, Canada.

Address correspondence to: Jérôme Cavaillé (cavaille{at}ibcg.biotoul.fr).

Abbreviations used: ncRNA, noncoding RNA; miRNA, microRNA; REF, rat embryonic fibroblast; PWS, Prader-Willi syndrome; SG, stress granule; PBs, P-bodies.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				P. Vitali, H. Royo, V. Marty, M.-L. Bortolin-Cavaille, and J. Cavaille Long nuclear-retained non-coding RNAs and allele-specific higher-order chromatin organization at imprinted snoRNA gene arrays J. Cell Sci., January 1, 2010; 123(1): 70 - 83. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				C. S. Bond and A. H. Fox Paraspeckles: nuclear bodies built on long noncoding RNA J. Cell Biol., September 7, 2009; 186(5): 637 - 644. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				P. P. Amaral, M. E. Dinger, T. R. Mercer, and J. S. Mattick The Eukaryotic Genome as an RNA Machine Science, March 28, 2008; 319(5871): 1787 - 1789. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]