Lipidome alterations in human prefrontal cortex during development, aging, and cognitive disorders.

Lipids are essential to brain functions, yet they remain largely unexplored. Here we investigated the lipidome composition of prefrontal cortex gray matter in 396 cognitively healthy individuals with ages spanning 100 years, as well as 67 adult individuals diagnosed with autism (ASD), schizophrenia (SZ), and Down syndrome (DS). Of the 5024 detected lipids, 95% showed significant age-dependent concentration differences clustering into four temporal stages, and resulting in a gradual increase in membrane fluidity in individuals ranging from newborn to nonagenarian.

Recently Evolved Tumor Suppressor Transcript TP73-AS1 Functions as Sponge of Human-Specific miR-941.

MicroRNA (miRNA) sponges are vital components of posttranscriptional gene regulation. Yet, only a limited number of miRNA sponges have been identified. Here, we show that the recently evolved noncoding tumor suppressor transcript, antisense RNA to TP73 gene (TP73-AS1), functions as a natural sponge of human-specific miRNA miR-941.