Expression characteristics of triplet repeat-containing RNAs and triplet repeat-interacting proteins in human tissues

Numerous human transcripts contain tandem repeats of trinucleotide motifs, the function of which remains unknown. In this study we used the available gene expression EST data to characterize the abundance of a large group of these transcripts in different tissues and determine the mRNAs which had the highest contribution to the observed levels of transcripts containing different types of the CNG repeats. A more extensive characteristics was performed for transcripts containing the CUG repeats, and those encoding the repeat-binding proteins. The scarcity of double-stranded CUG repeats as well as various proportions of the single-stranded and double-stranded CUG repeat-binding proteins were revealed in the studied transcriptomes. The observed correlated levels of transcripts containing single-stranded CUG repeats and of proteins binding single-stranded CUG repeats may imply that in addition to transcripts which only provide binding sites for these proteins there may be a substantial portion of the transcripts whose metabolism is directly regulated by such proteins. Our results showing a highly variable composition of triplet repeat-containing transcripts and their interacting proteins in different tissues may contribute to a better understanding of the mechanism of RNA-mediated pathogenesis in triplet repeat expansion diseases.