自然反义转录物:生物界中一种重要的基因表达调控分子

Natural antisense transcripts: an important controller of gene expression in living nature

自然反义转录物(natural antisense transcript,NAT)是一种在原核和真核生物中具有重要基因表达调控功能的非编码RNA分子。NAT通常与其靶分子通过序列互补形成自然有义-反义转录物(natural sense-antisense transcript,NSAT)配对的双链R N A,引起靶分子的降解或翻译抑制。鉴于非编码R N A介导的基因调控生物学事件的普遍性,以及最近各种生物的大规模基因组测序的完成,对N A T进行高通量的筛选与深入研究显得尤为重要和迫切。

Natural antisense transcripts（NAT） is a ncRNA which has important regulation functions of gene expression in prokaryon and eukaryon biology. NAT binds with its targets and forms natural sense-antisense transcripts （NSATs） double strand RNA （dsRNA）, causing their degradation or translation inhibition by sequence complementation. Therefore, the identification of NAT is very important to the systematical comprehension of gene regulation mediated by ncRNA. Due to the widespread of ncRNA-mediated regulation in biological events, it seemed that high-throughput screening and further studies of NAT are necessary and urgent.