Transcription readthrough is prevalent in healthy human tissues and associated with inherent genomic features.
Commun Biol
; 7(1): 100, 2024 01 15.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38225287
ABSTRACT
Transcription termination is a crucial step in the production of conforming mRNAs and functional proteins. Under cellular stress conditions, the transcription machinery fails to identify the termination site and continues transcribing beyond gene boundaries, a phenomenon designated as transcription readthrough. However, the prevalence and impact of this phenomenon in healthy human tissues remain unexplored. Here, we assessed transcription readthrough in almost 3000 transcriptome profiles representing 23 human tissues and found that 34% of the expressed protein-coding genes produced readthrough transcripts. The production of readthrough transcripts was restricted in genomic regions with high transcriptional activity and was associated with inefficient splicing and increased chromatin accessibility in terminal regions. In addition, we showed that these transcripts contained several binding sites for the same miRNA, unravelling a potential role as miRNA sponges. Overall, this work provides evidence that transcription readthrough is pervasive and non-stochastic, not only in abnormal conditions but also in healthy tissues. This suggests a potential role for such transcripts in modulating normal cellular functions.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Tipo de estudo:
Risk_factors_studies
Limite:
Humans
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article