FBS Colloquia No.217Germline Biology Group

Expression and function of cyclic phosphate-containing RNAs: a hidden layer of the transcriptome

Cellular RNA molecules contain phosphate or hydroxyl ends. A 2′,3′-cyclic phosphate (cP) is one of the 3′-terminal forms of RNAs mainly generated from RNA cleavage by ribonucleases. Although transcriptome profiling using RNA-seq has become a ubiquitous tool in biomedical research, cP-containing RNAs (cP-RNAs) form a hidden transcriptome layer, which is infrequently recognized and characterized, because standard RNA-seq is unable to capture them. Despite cP-RNAs’ invisibility in RNA-seq data, increasing evidence indicates that they are not accumulated simply as non-functional degradation products; rather, they have physiological roles in various biological processes, designating them as noteworthy functional molecules. By developing cP-RNA-seq, we revealed comprehensive cP-RNA expression repertoire in cell lines and tissues. In addition to the cP-RNA expression profiles, the role of cP-RNAs in asthma and infectious diseases will be presented and discussed.