RESUMEN
Retinoblastoma is a rare pediatric tumor of the retina, caused by the homozygous loss of the Retinoblastoma 1 (RB1) tumor suppressor gene. Previous microarray studies have identified changes in the expression profiles of coding genes; however, our understanding of how non-coding genes change in this tumor is absent. This is an important area of research, as in many adult malignancies, non-coding genes including LNC-RNAs are used as biomarkers to predict outcome and/or relapse. To establish a complete and in-depth RNA profile, of both coding and non-coding genes, in Retinoblastoma tumors, we conducted RNA-seq from a cohort of tumors and normal retina controls. This analysis identified widespread transcriptional changes in the levels of both coding and non-coding genes. Unexpectedly, we also found rare RNA fusion products resulting from genomic alterations, specific to Retinoblastoma tumor samples. We then determined whether these gene expression changes, of both coding and non-coding genes, were also found in a completely independent Retinoblastoma cohort. Using our dataset, we then profiled the potential effects of deregulated LNC-RNAs on the expression of neighboring genes, the entire genome, and on mRNAs that contain a putative area of homology. This analysis showed that most deregulated LNC-RNAs do not act locally to change the transcriptional environment, but potentially function to modulate genes at distant sites. From this analysis, we selected a strongly down-regulated LNC-RNA in Retinoblastoma, DRAIC, and found that restoring DRAIC RNA levels significantly slowed the growth of the Y79 Retinoblastoma cell line. Collectively, our work has generated the first non-coding RNA profile of Retinoblastoma tumors and has found that these tumors show widespread transcriptional deregulation.
RESUMEN
We describe a novel synthetic strategy for conjugating HMGA2 siRNA and the HMGA aptamer to the nucleolin aptamer and nucleolin antibody, respectively. Our studies demonstrate that these conjugates inhibit cell proliferation in retinoblastoma cells.
RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Cryptococcus neoformans, a basidiomycetous fungus of universal occurrence, is a significant opportunistic human pathogen causing meningitis. Owing to an increase in the number of immunosuppressed individuals along with emergence of drug-resistant strains, C. neoformans is gaining importance as a pathogen. Although, whole genome sequencing of three varieties of C. neoformans has been completed recently, no global proteomic studies have yet been reported. RESULTS: We performed a comprehensive proteomic analysis of C. neoformans var. grubii (Serotype A), which is the most virulent variety, in order to provide protein-level evidence for computationally predicted gene models and to refine the existing annotations. We confirmed the protein-coding potential of 3,674 genes from a total of 6,980 predicted protein-coding genes. We also identified 4 novel genes and corrected 104 predicted gene models. In addition, our studies led to the correction of translational start site, splice junctions and reading frame used for translation in a number of proteins. Finally, we validated a subset of our novel findings by RT-PCR and sequencing. CONCLUSIONS: Proteogenomic investigation described here facilitated the validation and refinement of computationally derived gene models in the intron-rich genome of C. neoformans, an important fungal pathogen in humans.
