◆Research findings by Assistant Professor Takuma Higuchi and Associate Professor Shuichi Sakamoto of the Department of Basic Medical Sciences in the School of Medicine have been published in the scientific journal *Nucleic Acids Research*, published by Oxford University Press.
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Assistant Professor Takuma Higuchi and Associate Professor Shu Sakamoto of the Department of Basic Medical Sciences in the School of Medicine, in collaboration with Dr. Kiernan and colleagues at the Institute of Human Genetics, and Dr. Kiernan et al. at the University of Montpellier in France, have gained new insights into splicing regulation coupled with microRNA (miRNA) biosynthesis control. Their findings were published in "Nucleic Acids Research" (May 19, 2020), a journal published by Oxford University Press.
In a previous study, this research team focused on the nucleic acid cleavage enzyme Dicer and discovered that the double-stranded RNA-binding protein Nuclear Factor 90 (NF90) binds to miRNA precursor transcripts (pri-miRNAs) located within the introns of mRNA precursors, thereby inhibiting the processing of those pri-miRNAs and, as a result, promoting the splicing of the corresponding mRNA precursors (Cell Research 2018).
In this study, pri-miRNAs bound by NF90 were identified across the entire genome, and it was found that many of the identified pri-miRNAs are located within introns. Furthermore, it was discovered that reduced NF90 expression leads to decreased mRNA production from mRNA precursors containing the identified pri-miRNAs.Furthermore, it was revealed that these pri-miRNAs possess the structural characteristic of a “stable double-stranded structure with few mismatches.” These analyses suggest that the formation of RNA secondary structures within introns may be involved in the splicing of mRNA precursors.
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