Cancer-Associated Long Noncoding RNA SMRT-2 Controls Epidermal Differentiation

Alternative RNA splicing is the regulated splicing of exons and introns to produce different mature mRNAs from a single pre-mRNA. Unlike in constitutive splicing where a single gene produces a single type of mRNA, alternative splicing allows an organism to produce multiple proteins from a single gene and plays an important role in protein diversity.
There are five types of alternative RNA splicing that vary in the ways the pre-mRNA segments are removed or retained in the mature mRNA. The first...

Proteins that regulate transcription can do so either via direct contact with RNA Polymerase or through indirect interactions facilitated by adaptors, mediators, histone-modifying proteins, and nucleosome remodelers. Direct interactions to activate transcription is seen in bacteria as well as in some eukaryotic genes. In these cases, upstream activation sequences are adjacent to the promoters, and the activator proteins interact directly with the transcriptional machinery. For example, in...

RNA Polymerase (RNAP) is conserved in all animals, with bacterial, archaeal, and eukaryotic RNAPs sharing significant sequence, structural, and functional similarities. Among the three eukaryotic RNAPs, RNA Polymerase II is most similar to bacterial RNAP in terms of both structural organization and folding topologies of the enzyme subunits. However, these similarities are not reflected in their mechanism of action.
All three eukaryotic RNAPs require specific transcription factors, of which the...

Combinatorial gene control is the synergistic action of several transcriptional factors to regulate the expression of a single gene. The absence of one or more of these factors may lead to a significant difference in the level of gene expression or repression.
The expression of more than 30,000 genes is controlled by approximately 2000-3000 transcription factors. This is possible because a single transcription factor can recognize more than one regulatory sequence. The specificity in gene...

Ribosome synthesis is a highly complex and coordinated process involving more than 200 assembly factors. The synthesis and processing of ribosomal components occurs not only in the nucleolus but also in the nucleoplasm and the cytoplasm of eukaryotic cells.
Ribosome biogenesis begins with the synthesis of 5S and 45S pre-rRNAs by distinct RNA polymerases. The primary transcripts are extensively processed and modified before they are bound and folded by ribosomal proteins and assembly factors,...

RNA interference (RNAi) is a process in which a small non-coding RNA molecule blocks the post-transcriptional expression of a gene by binding to its messenger RNA (mRNA) and preventing the protein from being translated.
This process occurs naturally in cells, often through the activity of genomically-encoded microRNAs. Researchers can take advantage of this mechanism by introducing synthetic RNAs to deactivate specific genes for research or therapeutic purposes. For example, RNAi could be used...