Prediction of trans-antisense Transcripts in Arabidopsis thaliana

Background: Natural antisense transcripts (NATs) are coding or non-coding RNAs with sequence complementarity to other transcripts (sense transcripts). These RNAs could potentially regulate the expression of their sense partner(s) at either the transcriptional or posttranscriptional level. Experimental and computational methods have demonstrated the widespread occurrence of NATs in eukaryotes. However, most previous studies only focused on cis-NATs with little attention being paid to NATs that originate in trans. Results: We have performed a genome-wide screen of trans-NATs in Arabidopsis thaliana and identified 1,320 putative trans-NAT pairs. An RNA annealing program predicted that most transNATs could form extended double-stranded RNA duplexes with their sense partners. Among trans-NATs with available expression data, more than 85% were found in the same tissue as their sense partners; of these, 67% were found in the same cell as their sense partners at comparable expression levels. ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: BIOCOMP
• Authors: Huan Wang, Nam-Hai Chua, Xiu-Jie Wang
• Keywords: Antisense Transcripts, BIOCOMP 2007, Bioinformatics, Natural Antisense Transcripts, Sense Partners