Piwi proteins and Piwi interacting RNAs, piRNAs, presented in germline cells play a role in transposon silencing during germline development. In contrast, the role of somatic Piwi proteins and piRNAs still remains obscure. Here, we characterize the expression pattern and distribution of piRNAs in human renal cells in terms of their potential role in kidney development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFtRNA-derived fragments participate in the regulation of many processes, such as gene silencing, splicing and translation in many organisms, ranging from bacteria to humans. We were interested to know how tRF abundance changes during the different stages of renal cell development. The research model used here consisted of the following human renal cells: hESCs, HEK-293T, HK-2 and A-489 kidney tumor cells, which, together, mimic the different stages of kidney development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLong noncoding RNAs exceeding a length of 200 nucleotides play an important role in ensuring cell functions and proper organism development by interacting with cellular compounds such as miRNA, mRNA, DNA and proteins. However, there is an additional level of lncRNA regulation, called lncRNA epigenetics, in gene expression control. In this review, we describe the most common modified nucleosides found in lncRNA, 6-methyladenosine, 5-methylcytidine, pseudouridine and inosine.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe application of a new generation of sequencing techniques has revealed that most of the genome has already been transcribed. However, only a small part of the genome codes proteins. The rest of the genome "dark matter" belongs to divergent groups of non-coding RNA (ncRNA), that is not translated into proteins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe recently discovered group of noncoding RNAs, which are fragments of tRNA molecules (tRFs), has not been fully characterized and its potential functions still require investigation. Porcine tRFs were characterized and compared to mouse and human tRFs. Two tRFs, 5' 32-33 nt and 3' 41-42 nt that are derived from the mature tRNAVal(CAC) and tRNAGly(GCC) were detected with the use of bioinformatics and the Northern blot method.
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