Search results for "Alu element"
showing 10 items of 10 documents
Alu insertion polymorphisms in the African Sahel and the origin of Fulani pastoralists.
2017
The origin of Western African pastoralism, represented today by the Fulani nomads, has been a highly debated issue for the past decades, and has not yet been conclusively resolved.This study focused on Alu polymorphisms in sedentary and nomadic populations across the African Sahel to investigate patterns of diversity that can complement the existing results and contribute to resolving issues concerning the origin of West African pastoralism.A new dataset of 21 Alu biallelic markers covering a substantial part of the African Sahel has been analysed jointly with several published North African populations.Interestingly, with regard to Alu variation, the relationship of Fulani pastoralists to …
Progerin expression induces a significant downregulation of transcription from human repetitive sequences in iPSC-derived dopaminergic neurons.
2019
Repetitive DNA sequences represent about half of the human genome. They have a central role in human biology, especially neurobiology, but are notoriously difficult to study. The purpose of this study was to quantify the transcription from repetitive sequences in a progerin-expressing cellular model of neuronal aging. Progerin is a nuclear protein causative of the Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome that is also incrementally expressed during the normal aging process. A dedicated pipeline of analysis allowed to quantify transcripts containing repetitive sequences from RNAseq datasets oblivious of their genomic localization, tolerating a sufficient degree of mutational noise, all with low c…
A comparative analysis to study editing of small noncoding BC200- and Alu transcripts in brain of prion-inoculated rhesus monkeys (M. Mulatta).
2012
Small retroelements (short interspersed elements, abbreviated SINEs) are abundant in vertebrate genomes. Using RNA isolated from rhesus monkey cerebellum and buffy coat, reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT PCR) was applied to clone cDNA of BC200 and Alu RNAs. Transcripts containing Alu-SINE sequences may be subjected to extensive RNA editing by ADAR (adenosine deaminases that act on RNA) deamination. Abundance of Alu transcripts was determined with real-time RT PCR and was significantly higher than BC200 (brain cytoplasmic) in cerebellum. BC200 transcripts were absent from buffy coat cells. Availability of the rhesus genome sequence allowed the BC200 transcripts to be mapped…
Genotyping of 9 STR systems in combination with 11 diallelic polymorphisms on the Y-chromosome by fragment analysis and minisequencing
2003
1. IntroductionThe study of Y chromosomal haplotypes and their relationship to human evolution andvariation is increasing rapidly in the fields of anthropology and forensic genetics.Although autosomal STRs are commonly used and very informative for paternity testingand forensic identification, the use of the nonrecombining portion of the Y chromosome isimportant and provides additional data in cases when the offspring is a male or for mixedmale/female crime stains. For this purpose, in the past 2 years, more and more attentionhas been paid to the examination of diallelic polymorphisms (SNPs) on the Y chromosome[1].Here, we describe an approach for the typing of 10 Y-chromosomal diallelic po…
Prion infected rhesus monkeys to study differential transcription of Alu DNA elements and editing of Alu transcripts in neuronal cells and blood cells
2012
Background Rhesus monkeys were used as a non-human primate model to study small non-coding RNA after infection with human sporadic and variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob prions. Methods Tissue-specific Alu DNA element transcription and editing of transcripts were assessed in neuronal – and blood cells (Buffy Coat). Results Tissue/cell-specific transcription and editing patterns were obtained. Active Alu DNA elements belonged to several Alu DNA families, they could be located on several chromosomes, and their genomic sites were identified. Deamination by adenosine deaminase acting on RNA and apolipoprotein B editing complex was found. Conclusions Different Alu transcription and editing programmes…
PCR Typing of Alu Elements — Molecular Genetics and Forensic Application
1996
Alu repeats belong to the family of short interspersed elements (SINEs) and are among the most abundant repetitive DNA sequences in the mammalian genome. They represent mobile genetic elements ancestrally derived from the 7SL RNA gene and have presumably spread within the genome by retroposition (reviewed in [1]). A particular group of Alu repeats appears to be human-specific (HS subfamily) and has expanded only recently within the human genome as indicated by distinct dimorphisms at various loci due to the presence or absence of an Alu repeat. In recent extensive studies, the frequency distributions of Alu insertions at selected loci in various human racial groups and populations were dete…
A mammalian gene evolved from the integrase domain of an LTR retrotransposon.
2001
FIG. 1.—Summary of the structure and coding sequence of the human Gin-1 gene. Sequences of human cDNAs with accession numbers XMp003947.2 (a putative full-length cDNA), BE502574, AW173201.1, AW950418.1, AI631948.1, and AA766836.1 were used to deduce and confirm these data. The full-length protein is 522 amino acids long. The Gin-1 coding region spans nucleotides 36153–15345 in the genomic clone NTp002663.4. Arrowheads and the numbers above them, respectively, indicate the positions and lengths of introns. Several Alu repeats were detected within the two largest introns. Bold letters indicate the region homologous to the most conserved part of the IN domain, detailed in figure 2 and used to …
Abnormal Hypermethylation at Imprinting Control Regions in Patients with S-Adenosylhomocysteine Hydrolase (AHCY) Deficiency
2016
S-adenosylhomocysteine hydrolase (AHCY) deficiency is a rare autosomal recessive disorder in methionine metabolism caused by mutations in the AHCY gene. Main characteristics are psychomotor delay including delayed myelination and myopathy (hypotonia, absent tendon reflexes etc.) from birth, mostly associated with hypermethioninaemia, elevated serum creatine kinase levels and increased genome wide DNA methylation. The prime function of AHCY is to hydrolyse and efficiently remove S-adenosylhomocysteine, the by-product of transmethylation reactions and one of the most potent methyltransferase inhibitors. In this study, we set out to more specifically characterize DNA methylation changes in blo…
Contribution of Large Genomic Rearrangements in Italian Lynch Syndrome Patients: Characterization of a Novel Alu-Mediated Deletion
2012
Lynch syndrome is associated with germ-line mutations in the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) genes, mainlyMLH1andMSH2. Most of the mutations reported in these genes to date are point mutations, small deletions, and insertions. Large genomic rearrangements in the MMR genes predisposing to Lynch syndrome also occur, but the frequency varies depending on the population studied on average from 5 to 20%. The aim of this study was to examine the contribution of large rearrangements in theMLH1andMSH2genes in a well-characterised series of 63 unrelated Southern Italian Lynch syndrome patients who were negative for pathogenic point mutations in theMLH1,MSH2, andMSH6genes. We identified a large novel delet…
Possible Editing of Alu Transcripts in Blood Cells of Sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob Disease (sCJD)
2011
Editing of RNA molecules gained major interest when coding mRNA was analyzed. A small, noncoding, Alu DNA element transcript that may act as regulatory RNA in cells was examined in this study. Alu DNA element transcription was determined in buffy coat from healthy humans and human sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD) cases. In addition, non-sCJD controls, mostly dementia cases and Alzheimer's disease (AD) cases, were included. The Alu cDNA sequences were aligned to genomic Alu DNA elements by database search. A comparison of best aligned Alu DNA sequences with our RNA/cDNA clones revealed editing by deamination by ADAR (adenosine deaminase acting on RNA) and APOBEC (apolipoprotein B ed…