Conserved expression of ultra-conserved noncoding RNA in mammalian nervous system.

T-UCRs, a class of long non-coding RNAs that are transcribed from ultra-conserved regions (UCRs), might play an important role in development and diseases. However, the amount of T-UCRs that are conservatively expressed in the developing nervous systems of mice, monkeys and humans is still unknown. In this study, we screened the RNA sequence signals of 481 identified UCRs in an E14.5 mouse brain from the ENCODE database and found 76 UCRs that may be transcribed into T-UCRs. To verify the expression of these potential T-UCRs, we used an RT-PCR experiment and identified that 60 T-UCRs can be expressed in the E14.5 mouse brain. Furthermore, we detected the expression conservation of 76 potential T-UCRs in two comparisons: postnatal day 0 brains of a mouse and a rhesus monkey and neural stem cells of mouse and human by RT-PCR experimentation. It was found that up to 65% of these T-UCRs were expressed in mouse, rhesus monkey and human nervous systems. Next, by testing the spatiotemporal expression pattern of these T-UCRs expressed in mouse, rhesus monkey and human nervous systems, we found that approximately 30% of the T-UCRs showed a relatively high and dynamical expression during mouse brain development. Finally, through biological process and molecular function gene ontology analysis of the host genes of intronic or exonic-antisense T-UCRs, it was discovered that most of the genes were involved in RNA splicing or RNA binding. These results suggest that T-UCRs are likely to participate in nervous system development through RNA processing.

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