0000000001304608

AUTHOR

Julia Jehn

5' tRNA halves are highly expressed in the primate hippocampus and might sequence-specifically regulate gene expression

Fragments of mature tRNAs have long been considered as mere degradation products without physiological function. However, recent reports show that tRNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs) play prominent roles in diverse cellular processes across a wide spectrum of species. Contrasting the situation in other small RNA pathways the mechanisms behind these effects appear more diverse, more complex, and are generally less well understood. In addition, surprisingly little is known about the expression profiles of tsRNAs across different tissues and species. Here, we provide an initial overview of tsRNA expression in different species and tissues, revealing very high levels of 5′ tRNA halves (5′ tRHs) pa…

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5’ tRNA halves are highly expressed in the primate hippocampus and sequence-specifically regulate gene expression

AbstractFragments of mature tRNAs have long been considered as mere degradation products without physiological function. However, recent reports show that tRNA fragments (tRFs) play prominent roles in diverse cellular processes across a wide spectrum of species. Contrasting the situation in other small RNA pathways the mechanisms behind these effects appear more diverse, more complex and are generally less well understood. In addition, surprisingly little is known about the expression profiles of tRFs across different tissues and species. Here, we provide an initial overview of tRF expression in different species and tissues, revealing very high tRF-levels particularly in the primate hippoc…

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Supplementary Figures from Widespread selection for extremely high and low levels of secondary structure in coding sequences across all domains of life

Figure S1. Pairwise comparison of DBF-scores based on different models. Each plot comprises DBF-scores of 27,628 Arabidopsis thaliana ORFs in a pairwise comparison of two different models.; Figure S2. Codon GC-content and ORF structuring. a) Mean GC content of codons for each amino acid divided into those that are found more frequently in highly structured oORFs (DBF high) and those that are found more frequently in lowly structured oORFs (DBF low) using exemplarily data from Mus musculus (see figure 3c). b) Mean GC content of codons for each amino acid sorted by DBF score (see figure 3d). c) Mean GC content of codons for amino acids of set 1 compared to set 2 (see figure 3d). ***: p<0.0…

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Conserved and ubiquitous expression of piRNAs and PIWI genes in mollusks antedates the origin of somatic PIWI/piRNA expression to the root of bilaterians

AbstractPIWI proteins and a specific class of small non-coding RNAs, termed Piwi interacting RNAs (piRNAs), suppress transposon activity in animals on the transcriptional and post-transcriptional level, thus protecting genomes from detrimental insertion mutagenesis. While in vertebrates the PIWI/piRNA system appears to be restricted to the germline, somatic expression of piRNAs directed against transposons is widespread in arthropods, likely representing the ancestral state for this phylum. Here, we show that somatic expression of PIWI genes and piRNAs directed against transposons is conserved in mollusks, suggesting that somatic PIWI/piRNA expression was already realized in an early bilate…

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Widespread selection for high and low secondary structure in coding sequences across all domains of life

AbstractCodon composition, GC-content and local RNA secondary structures can have a profound effect on gene expression and mutations affecting these parameters, even though they do not alter the protein sequence, are not neutral in terms of selection. Although evidence exists that in some cases selection favors more stable RNA secondary structures, we currently lack a concrete idea of how many genes are affected within a species, and if this is a universal phenomenon in nature.We searched for signs of structural selection in a global manner, analyzing a set of one million coding sequences from 73 species representing all domains of life, as well as viruses, by means of our newly developed s…

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Supplementary Table 2 from Widespread selection for extremely high and low levels of secondary structure in coding sequences across all domains of life

Correlation of DBF-scores of homologous coding sequences across different species

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Supplementary Table 3 from Widespread selection for extremely high and low levels of secondary structure in coding sequences across all domains of life

(Absence of) Correlation between DBF-scores and gene expression

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Supplementary Table 4 from Widespread selection for extremely high and low levels of secondary structure in coding sequences across all domains of life

Estimates on the number of genes per species being subject to structural selection

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Supplementary Table 1 from Widespread selection for extremely high and low levels of secondary structure in coding sequences across all domains of life

Distribution of DBF-scores per species

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Supplementary Table 5 from Widespread selection for extremely high and low levels of secondary structure in coding sequences across all domains of life

Enrichment of codons and amino acids in ORFs with high/low DBF-scores

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