Critical association of ncRNA with introns.

ABSTRACT

It has been widely acknowledged that non-coding RNAs are master-regulators of genomic functions. However, the significance of the presence of ncRNA within introns has not received proper attention. ncRNA within introns are commonly produced through the post-splicing process and are specific signals of gene transcription events, impacting many other genes and modulating their expression. This study, along with the following discussion, details the association of thousands of ncRNAs--snoRNA, miRNA, siRNA, piRNA and long ncRNA--within human introns. We propose that such an association between human introns and ncRNAs has a pronounced synergistic effect with important implications for fine-tuning gene expression patterns across the entire genome.