Establishing genome-wide analysis of RNA guanine quadruplexes conserved among species

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K11526
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 62010:Life, health and medical informatics-related
• Research Institution: Osaka University
• Principal Investigator: Kato Yuki 大阪大学, 大学院医学系研究科, 准教授 (10511280)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: RNA / G4重鎖 / トランスクリプトーム

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Recent exhaustive analyses have revealed that a large majority of RNAs expressed in cells are non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), which do not code proteins. G-quadruplexes (G4s) are special substructures that are formed in G-rich sequences, and recent reports say that ncRNAs may contain abundant G4s. However, it is almost unclear what a biological meaning of G4s is, how they are conserved among different species, and to what extent they are occupied in the whole genome. In this study, we developed a classification model for G4s, which will lead to identifying G4 regions in ncRNAs genome-wide among different species.

Free Research Field

バイオインフォマティクス

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究を発展させることによって保存されたG４重鎖領域を網羅的に同定できれば、これを契機に作動装置を特定し、ひいてはncRNA中に埋め込まれたG４重鎖の生物学的意義を明らかにすることへとつながることが期待できる。G４重鎖はALSなどの神経変性疾患にも関与していることが明らかになりつつあるため、ncRNAの機能を規定する要素として保存されたG４重鎖領域を同定する本研究は、疾患病態を解明するための一里塚としても社会的意義に富んだ内容だと考える。