Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 22, 2025

Identification of RNAs Engaged in Direct RNA-RNA Interaction with a Long Non-Coding RNA
Published on: July 9, 2021
Preferential Co-Expression and Colocalization of rDNA-Contacting Genes with LincRNAs Suggest Their Involvement in
Nickolai A Tchurikov1, Ildar R Alembekov1, Elena S Klushevskaya1
1Department of Epigenetic Mechanisms of Gene Expression Regulation, Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119334, Russia.
Abstract:
Different developmental genes shape frequent dynamic inter-chromosomal contacts with rDNA units in human and Drosophila cells. In the course of differentiation, changes in these contacts occur, coupled with changes in the expression of hundreds of rDNA-contacting genes. The data suggest a possible role of nucleoli in the global regulation of gene expression. However, the mechanism behind the specificity of these inter-chromosomal contacts, which are rebuilt in every cell cycle, is not yet known. Here, we describe the strong association of rDNA-contacting genes with numerous long intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs) in HEK293T cells and in initial and differentiated K562 cells. We observed that up to 600 different lincRNAs were preferentially co-expressed with multiple overlapping sets of rDNA-contacting developmental genes, and there was a strong correlation between the genomic positions of rDNA-contacting genes and lincRNA mappings. These two findings suggest that lincRNAs might guide the corresponding developmental genes toward rDNA clusters. We conclude that the inter-chromosomal interactions of rDNA-contacting genes with nucleoli might be guided by lincRNAs, which might physically link particular genomic regions with rDNA clusters.
Related Concept Videos
Chromatin Position Affects Gene Expression
Topologically Associated Domains (TADs)
The 3-dimensional positioning of chromatin in the nucleus influences the...
lncRNA - Long Non-coding RNAs
The Nucleolus
Ribosome Profiling
Applications of ribosome profiling
Ribosome profiling has many applications, including in vivo monitoring of translation inside a particular organ or tissue type and quantifying new protein synthesis levels.
The technique...
Chromatin Structure Regulates pre-mRNA Processing
The chromatin structure, especially...
Regulation of Expression at Multiple Steps

