Regulatory roles of natural antisense transcripts

• Published in: Nature reviews. Molecular cell biology Vol. 10; no. 9; pp. 637 - 643
• Main Authors: Faghihi, Mohammad Ali, Wahlestedt, Claes
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.09.2009; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: Animal genetics; Animals; Antisense RNA; Biochemistry; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Cancer Research; Cell Biology; Developmental Biology; Gene expression; Gene Expression Regulation - physiology; Genetic transcription; Genomes; Humans; Life Sciences; Mammals; Physiological aspects; progress; Proteins; RNA polymerase; RNA, Antisense - physiology; Stem Cells; United States
• ISSN: 1471-0072; 1471-0080; 1471-0080
• DOI: 10.1038/nrm2738

Natural antisense transcripts are frequently functional and are involved in regulating gene expression. The authors summarize the proposed actions of antisense transcript into four models, each corresponding to a putative regulatory mechanism for a subset of antisense transcripts. Mammalian genomes encode numerous natural antisense transcripts, but the function of these transcripts is not well understood. Functional validation studies indicate that antisense transcripts are not a uniform group of regulatory RNAs but instead belong to multiple categories with some common features. Recent evidence indicates that antisense transcripts are frequently functional and use diverse transcriptional and post-transcriptional gene regulatory mechanisms to carry out a wide variety of biological roles.