RNA hairpins in noncoding regions of human brain and Caenorhabditis elegans mRNA are edited by adenosine deaminases that act on RNA.

ABSTRACT: Adenosine deaminases that act on RNA (ADARs) constitute a family of RNA-editing enzymes that convert adenosine to inosine within double-stranded regions of RNA. We previously developed a method to identify inosine-containing RNAs and used it to identify five ADAR substrates in Caenorhabditis elegans. Here we use the same method to identify five additional C. elegans substrates, including three mRNAs that encode proteins known to affect neuronal functions. All 10 of the C. elegans substrates are edited in long stem-loop structures located in noncoding regions, and thus contrast with previously identified substrates of other organisms, in which ADARs target codons. To determine whether editing in noncoding regions was a conserved ADAR function, we applied our method to poly(A)+ RNA of human

SUBMITTER: Morse DP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC122993 | biostudies-literature | 2002 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature