Novel lncRNA UGGT1-AS1 Regulates UGGT1 Expression in Breast Cancer Cell Line

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are transcripts over 200 nucleotides long that do not encode proteins. Although many lncRNAs remain uncharacterized, they are known to play diverse regulatory roles in gene expression. A group of lncRNAs called natural antisense transcripts can form double-stranded structures with their sense partners due to sequence complementarity. These duplexes can become substrates for A-to-I RNA editing, an epitranscriptomic modification mediated by ADAR enzymes. RNA editing is known to influence transcript splicing, affect the resulting gene expression product or alter RNA stability, all of which can impact cancer cell biology. Here, we show a novel natural antisense transcript, UGGT1-AS1, that we have identified and characterized in terms of its cellular localization and sense partner interactions. Furthermore, we demonstrate that UGGT1-AS1 affects cell proliferation and regulates the stability of the UGGT1 sense transcript. Finally, using publicly available RNA sequencing data, we identify A-to-I RNA editing events in the protein-coding gene UGGT1 and further confirm them by RT-PCR and Sanger sequencing in MCF7 cell lines. We hypothesize that UGGT1-AS1 may act as a triggering factor for the A-to-I RNA editing process in its sense partner. Our findings highlight the regulatory role of UGGT1-AS1 and suggest its involvement in RNA editing and cancer biology.