1. Free circular introns with an unusual branchpoint in neuronal projections.
- Author
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Saini H, Bicknell AA, Eddy SR, and Moore MJ
- Subjects
- Animals, Axons metabolism, Cells, Cultured, Dendrites metabolism, Female, Gene Expression Profiling, Gene Ontology, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing methods, Nucleic Acid Conformation, RNA, Circular chemistry, RNA, Circular metabolism, Rats, Sprague-Dawley, Hippocampus cytology, Introns genetics, Neurons metabolism, RNA, Circular genetics
- Abstract
The polarized structure of axons and dendrites in neuronal cells depends in part on RNA localization. Previous studies have looked at which polyadenylated RNAs are enriched in neuronal projections or at synapses, but less is known about the distribution of non-adenylated RNAs. By physically dissecting projections from cell bodies of primary rat hippocampal neurons and sequencing total RNA, we found an unexpected set of free circular introns with a non-canonical branchpoint enriched in neuronal projections. These introns appear to be tailless lariats that escape debranching. They lack ribosome occupancy, sequence conservation, and known localization signals, and their function, if any, is not known. Nonetheless, their enrichment in projections has important implications for our understanding of the mechanisms by which RNAs reach distal compartments of asymmetric cells., Competing Interests: HS, AB, SE, MM No competing interests declared, (© 2019, Saini et al.)
- Published
- 2019
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