植物RNA沉默的分子机制研究进展

RNA沉默（RNA silencing）是真核生物中的一种抵抗外源遗传因子（病毒、转座子或转基因）及调控基凶表达的防御机制。参与植物RNA沉默的酶及蛋白质主要包括6种RNA依赖的RNA聚合酶、4种Dicer-like（DCL）核酸内切酶和10种Argonautes蛋白。植物中4条RNA沉默途径分别由微小RNA（miRNAs）和3种小干扰RNA（siRNAs）介导,包括反式作用siRNAs（ta－siRNAs）、天然反义siRNAs（natsiRNAs）和异染色质siRNAs（hc-siRNAs）。在植物RNA沉默的系统性传播中,由DCL4或DCL2将dsRNAs裁剪为次级SiRNAS,以放大RNA沉默信号和增强沉默效应。     

一种含有端粒重复序列非编码RNA的发现及最新研究进展

端粒是染色体末端的特化结构,由简单呈串联线性排列的核酸重复序列及相关蛋白质组成。其核酸序列具有高度的保守性,均富含GC。在人类为TTAGGG的高度重复序列具有维持基因组完整性的作用。端粒功能异常会导致染色体失去稳定性,促进肿瘤的发生和发展。以往认为端粒附近区域不具有转录活性,但最近在Science杂志上Azzalin等首次报道了该区域可以转录一种非编码RNA,即端粒RNA(telomeric RNA)。该分子具有特殊的UUAGGG重复序列,在调控端粒长度和端粒酶活性上具有重要作用,在发育、衰老和肿瘤发生发展等研究中已成为热点。该文将对近期有关端粒RNA的研究进展予以综述。     

构建一种新型腮腺炎病毒核酸检测阳性对照品

为快速鉴定腮腺炎病毒核酸检测中由阳性对照引起的交叉污染问题,本研究建立了一种新型腮腺炎病毒核酸检测阳性对照。该阳性对照为合成的RNA转录产物,在使用相同的引物和反应条件下,该阳性对照在RT-PCR和巢式PCR试验中产生的PCR产物和正常腮腺炎病毒核酸阳性标本的PCR产物片段长度不同,通过比较PCR产物的大小可快速鉴定由阳性对照引起实验室交叉污染。这种新型腮腺炎病毒RNA阳性对照可广泛应用于腮腺炎病毒实验室诊断和基因定型中,对腮腺炎病毒核酸检测可进行良好的实验室质量控制。     

阿格蛋白2:RNA诱导基因沉默复合物的切片机

RNA干扰是生物体基因表达调节的一种重要方式,由RNA诱导的基因沉默复合物（RISC）来介导完成,这个复合物中除了微小RNA外,最新研究表明阿格蛋白2是其中的主要应答元件,它本身具有核酸内切酶活性,可以有效启动mRNA的剪切反应而实现对基因表达的调节,这个进展使我们对RNA干扰过程有了更为详尽的理解。     

反义RNA网络──一种新假说

根据核酸的基本特性和最新研究成果,提出了一种新的假说──反义RNA网络：生物体内存在着许许多多小分子的基因组反义RNA以及与之互补的反反义RNA片段,由于机体的自身修饰作用（或其它机理）,它们彼此不发生复性或杂交.这种反义RNA网络一方面参与调控特定基因在特定部位、特定时间的启动和关闭,维持机体各种功能活动的相对稳定,另一方面对体内突变核酸和体外侵入核酸发挥特异性识别和排斥作用.     

SINDBIS病毒基因组的研究

Sindbis病毒经蔗糖密度梯度离心纯化后,用SDS/酚/氯仿/异戊醇处理和乙醇沉淀,制得的基因组RNA具有典型核酸紫外吸收光谱的特征:最大吸收在260nm,最小在235nm。沉降系数为45S。沉降扫描图表明,RNA样品均一,分子完整。 用高渗法在原代鸡胚纤维母细胞测定了基因组RNA的感染性,空斑滴度为5.9×10~4pFU(空斑形成单位)/ml,空斑形态和大小与完整病毒颗粒相同。经核糖核酸酶处理,基因组RNA即丧失感染性,说明了这种生物活性的特异性。     

女贞的一种小分子闭环RNA

女贞(Ligustrum Cornpactum)叶片的核酸提取物,经聚丙烯酰胺凝胶电泳(PAGE),出现两条低分子量的核酸带,DNase 1及RNase A处理证实两条核酸带均为RNA,初步测得迁移率较小的RNA的分子量约为0.7×10~5道尔顿,5＇末端标记,双相及双方向PAGE分析证实,该RNA是存在于女贞叶片细胞内的一种小分子闭环RNA(简称psc RNA),不同离子强度下的RNase A处理揭示,psc RNA分子内有大量碱基互补结构,从点杂交结果推断psc RNA的一级结构中,不含绝大多数闭环类病毒RNA所共同具有的中心保守区段,在本实验的条件下pscRNA不能感染爪哇三七,女贞叶片汁液和按照提取,纯化病毒粒子的程序制备的溶液。在电镜下均没有观察到病毒颗粒,结果表明,女贞叶片细胞中存在一种无蛋白质外壳包被的、具有次量分子内碱基互辅结构的共价闭合环状RNA分子,在其它两种植物中,亦初步检测到此类闭环RNA分子,讨论了此种闭环RNA分子的意义。     

流行性出血热病毒核酸的提取

本文报告流行性出血热R22和A9株病毒培养,同位素标记及核酸提取的初步研究,並获得了该病毒核酸的3个片段即L、M、S、分子量分别约为:3.8、1.9和0.86×10~5道尔顿,不论用20～70％蔗糖密度梯度离心提纯的病毒,或用30％蔗糖垫层离心的粗制病毒,均获同样结果,但多数情况下,用蔗糖密度梯度离心时,除病毒峰外,还发现主要由细胞组份(即线粒体和核糖体等)组成的另一峰,并经常影响病毒RNA的提取,对如何获得纯净病毒及其核酸进行了讨论。     

真核生物中的微小RNA及其功能研究进展

真核生物中存在两种主要的非编码RNA(non-coding RNA),在真核生物中发挥重要作用。一类为微小RNA(microRNA,miRNA),另一为小干扰RNA(siRNA)。miRNA大小为19～25nt,在体内与蛋白质形成核糖核蛋白复合体(miRNP),在真核基因的表达调控,生长发育中起重要作用。siRNA在RNA干扰(RNA地 interference,RNAi)途径中起定位特异mRNA的作用。miRNA与siRNA有联系也有区别。miRNA在真核生物中的调控机制具有保守性。     

肝癌相关miRNA

微RNA(microRNA,miRNA)是一类长度约为21～23个核苷酸的内源性小分子RNA,可在转录和转录后水平参与基因表达、细胞分化、增殖与凋亡、生物体发育等多种生物学过程的调控。肝癌是一种常见的恶性肿瘤,严重威胁着人类健康,但其具体发病机制尚不清楚。就miRNA与肝癌的发生、发展、转移的关系及miRNA在肝癌诊治中的应用进行综述。     

植物中 RNA 分子系统运输的研究进展

RNA 分子主要以单链的形式存在于生物体内,既担负着贮存及转移遗传信息的作用,又能作为核酶直接在细胞内发挥代谢功能 . 在植物中 RNA 也可作为活跃的信号分子调控基因表达和发育 . 介绍了包括病毒 RNA 、 RNA 沉默信号、特异内源 RNA 等 RNA 分子,在植物体内的系统运输及其在植物基因表达调控中所起作用的研究进展 .     

Antibodies against RNA hydrolyze RNA and DNA

Immunization of animals with DNA leads to the production of anti-DNA antibodies (Abs) demonstrating both DNase and RNase activities. It is currently not known whether anti-RNA Abs can possess nuclease activities. In an attempt to address this question, we have shown that immunization of three rabbits with complex of RNA with methylated BSA (mBSA) stimulates production of IgGs with RNase and DNase activities belonging to IgGs, while polyclonal Abs from three non-immunized rabbits and three animals immunized with mBSA are catalytically inactive. Affinity chromatography of IgGs from the sera of autoimmune (AI) patients on DNA-cellulose usually demonstrates a number of fractions, all of which effectively hydrolyze both DNA and RNA, while rabbit catalytic IgGs were separated into Ab subfractions, some of which demonstrated only DNase activity, while others hydrolyzed RNA faster than DNA. The enzymic properties of the RNase and DNase IgGs from rabbits immunized with RNA distinguish them from all known canonical RNases and DNases and DNA- and RNA-hydrolyzing abzymes (Abzs) from patients with different AI diseases. In contrast to RNases and AI RNA-hydrolyzing Abs, rabbit RNase IgGs catalyze only the first step of the hydrolysis reaction but cannot hydrolyze the formed terminal 2',3'-cyclophosphate. The data indicate that Abzs of AI patients hydrolyzing nucleic acids in part may be Abs against RNA and its complexes with proteins. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一种高质量麦冬总RNA的提取方法

本方法采用CTAB作为去污剂,分别用氯仿/异戊醇反复抽提、LiCl沉淀,以去除蛋白质、碳水化合物和次生代谢物等杂质,用DNase处理去除DNA污染,最后用无水乙醇沉淀获得总RNA。该方法不仅能获得完整性好、纯度高的总RNA,而且操作简单、成本低廉、RNA产率高,对富含次生物质的中草药材植物组织总RNA的提取具有借鉴意义。     

ExpaRNA-P: simultaneous exact pattern matching and folding of RNAs

Background

Identifying sequence-structure motifs common to two RNAs can speed up the comparison of structural RNAs substantially. The core algorithm of the existent approach ExpaRNA solves this problem for a priori known input structures. However, such structures are rarely known; moreover, predicting them computationally is no rescue, since single sequence structure prediction is highly unreliable.

Results

The novel algorithm ExpaRNA-P computes exactly matching sequence-structure motifs in entire Boltzmann-distributed structure ensembles of two RNAs; thereby we match and fold RNAs simultaneously, analogous to the well-known “simultaneous alignment and folding” of RNAs. While this implies much higher flexibility compared to ExpaRNA, ExpaRNA-P has the same very low complexity (quadratic in time and space), which is enabled by its novel structure ensemble-based sparsification. Furthermore, we devise a generalized chaining algorithm to compute compatible subsets of ExpaRNA-P’s sequence-structure motifs. Resulting in the very fast RNA alignment approach ExpLoc-P, we utilize the best chain as anchor constraints for the sequence-structure alignment tool LocARNA. ExpLoc-P is benchmarked in several variants and versus state-of-the-art approaches. In particular, we formally introduce and evaluate strict and relaxed variants of the problem; the latter makes the approach sensitive to compensatory mutations. Across a benchmark set of typical non-coding RNAs, ExpLoc-P has similar accuracy to LocARNA but is four times faster (in both variants), while it achieves a speed-up over 30-fold for the longest benchmark sequences (≈400nt). Finally, different ExpLoc-P variants enable tailoring of the method to specific application scenarios. ExpaRNA-P and ExpLoc-P are distributed as part of the LocARNA package. The source code is freely available at http://www.bioinf.uni-freiburg.de/Software/ExpaRNA-P.

Conclusions

ExpaRNA-P’s novel ensemble-based sparsification reduces its complexity to quadratic time and space. Thereby, ExpaRNA-P significantly speeds up sequence-structure alignment while maintaining the alignment quality. Different ExpaRNA-P variants support a wide range of applications.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12859-014-0404-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Question 5: On the Chemical Reality of the RNA World

The discovery of catalytic RNA has revolutionised modern molecular biology and bears important implications for the origin of Life research. Catalytic RNA, in particular self-replicating RNA, prompted the hypothesis of an early “RNA world” where RNA molecules played all major roles such information storage and catalysis. The actual role of RNA as primary actor in the origin of life has been under debate for a long time, with a particular emphasis on possible pathways to the prebiotic synthesis of mononucleotides; their polymerization and the possibility of spontaneous emergence of catalytic RNAs synthesised under plausible prebiotic conditions. However, little emphasis has been put on the chemical reality of an RNA world; in particular concerning the chemical constrains that such scenario should have met to be feasible. This paper intends to address those concerns with regard to the achievement of high local RNA molecules concentration and the aetiology of unique sequence under plausible prebiotic conditions. Presented at: International School of Complexity – 4th Course: Basic Questions on the Origins of Life; “Ettore Majorana” Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture, Erice, Italy, 1–6 October 2006.     

Electrokinetic determinations of enzymatic susceptibilities of cell surface-associated RNA

Earlier investigations suggested, using electrokinetic evidence, that RNA is present at the surfaces of some types of cultured and freshly isolated cells. In this report, further investigations of the nature of cell surface RNA of cultured Ehrlich ascites (EAT) cells are reported. These experiments were carried out by determining the changes in electrophoretic mobility of EAT cells after treatment with several highly purified nucleases, neuraminidase, and hyaluronidase. The results suggested that cell surface RNA is located at surface sites separate from those susceptible to neuraminidase and hyaluronidase, that α and ω termini of RNA are absent from the electrokinetic surface, and that the RNA present at the cell surface might exist predominantly in a double-stranded form. A model is proposed in which cell surface RNA strand termini are buried out of the electrokinetic surface, but where RNA extends from these buried termini into the electrokinetic surface in loops.     

正在崛起的RNA纳米技术

RNA纳米技术得益于纽约大学西曼(Nadrian C.Seeman)教授开创的DNA纳米技术,RNA是由腺嘌呤(A)、尿嘧啶(U)、鸟嘌呤(G)和胞嘧啶(C)构成的一种核糖核酸高分子,与DNA的Watson-Crick碱基配对(A-T,G-C)的双螺旋链的结构不完全一样,RNA的二级结构里经常出现一些非传统的碱基配对如环环相互作用,这些非传统配对促使RNA分子折叠成刚性结构。本文综述了正在崛起的RNA纳米技术,列举了一些著名的实验,如郭培宣(Peixuan Guo)等从自然界的phi29噬菌体中发现的pRNA纳米马达是由六个小RNA分子构成的六环结构,Jaeger等发展了RNA构造术(RNA-tectonics),根据已知的RNA分子的碱基和非传统配对,他们设计利用小RNA分子构造二聚体、一维线性多聚体、和二维网状的七巧板迷宫(jigsaw puzzle)等图案,用tRNA分子或设计用几条RNA分子来构建多面体如立方体和八面体等立体结构等。RNA纳米技术正在崛起,它将在医学、生物技术、合成生物学和纳米技术领域扮演重要的角色。     

The Role of Structural Elements in Dimerization of RNA Fragments in Avian Retroviruses

The slipped loop structure, earlier identified as an unusual DNA structure, was found to be a possible element of the RNA folding. In order to experimentally test this suggestion, model oligoribonucleotides capable of forming the SLS were synthesized. Treatment of the oligoribonucleotides with nuclease S1 and RNases specific for single- and double-stranded RNA demonstrated the steric possibility of SLS formation. To determine the possible functional role of SLS-RNA, various naturally occurring RNAs were screened in silico. Among the most interesting findings were dimerization initiation sites of avian retroviral genomic RNAs. Analysis of RNA from 31 viruses showed that formation of the intermolecular SLS during RNA dimerization is theoretically possible, competing with the formation of an alternative hairpin structure. Identification of the secondary structure of selected RNA dimers employing nuclease digestion techniques as well as covariance analysis of the retroviral RNA dimerization initiation site sequences were used to show that the alternative conformation (loop–loop interaction of two hairpins, or kissing hairpins) is the most preferred. Alternative structures and conformational transitions in RNA dimerization mechanisms in avian retroviruses are discussed.     

Release of Nucleic Acids by Eukaryotic Cells in Tissue Culture

Extracellular nucleic acids in cultures of A431 and HeLa cells were investigated. The data obtained demonstrate the presence of high weight DNA and RNA in the extracellular medium. Temporal changes of extracellular nucleic acids levels in growth medium were investigated.