Eukaryotic antisense ahead of its time

Access through your institution Buy or subscribe > tcRNA102 ... is probably the first antisense regulatory RNA > identified in a higher eukaryote I was an undergraduate student in the

laboratory of Stu Heywood at the University of Connecticut–Storrs in the mid-1970s. His laboratory studied embryonic chick muscles. Beginning the summer between my sophomore and junior

years, as a wide-eyed and impressionable budding scientist (who, for reasons unknown at the time, looked forward to every precipitation that required mouth-pipetting 25 ml of ethanol), I was

truly in awe of what was already known about the steps of eukaryotic protein synthesis and of the types of experiments that could uncover new effectors of mRNA translation. Stu called one

such effector 'translational control RNA' (tcRNA) in a paper (Bester _et al_.) that was published after I left for the University of Wisconsin–Madison to start graduate school. It

turns out that what Stu ended up calling tcRNA102, as it is 102 nucleotides, is probably the first antisense regulatory RNA identified in a higher eukaryote. tcRNA102 had imperfect

complementarity to the 5′ untranslated region (UTR) of the myosin heavy chain (MHC) mRNA, was a constituent of isolated MHC mRNP particles, and stoichiometrically inhibited the translation

of mRNAs with which it associated. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution ACCESS OPTIONS Access through your institution Subscribe to this journal Receive 12

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REFERENCES * Bester, A. J., Kennedy, D. S. & Heywood, S. M. Two classes of translational control RNA: their role in the regulation of protein synthesis. _Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA_ 72,

1523–1527 (1975) Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Heywood, S. M. tcRNA as a naturally occurring antisense RNA in eukaryotes. _Nucleic Acids Res._ 14, 6771–6772 (1986) Article  CAS  Google

Scholar  * Heywood, S. M. & Kennedy, D. S. Purification of myosin translational control RNA and its interaction with myosin messenger RNA. _Biochemistry_ 15, 3314–3319 (1976) Article 

CAS  Google Scholar  * Heywood, S. M., Kennedy, D. S. & Bester, A. J. Studies concerning the mechanism by which translational-control RNA regulates protein synthesis in embryonic muscle.

_Eur. J. Biochem._ 58, 587–593 (1975) Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * Lee, R. C., Feinbaum, R. L. & Ambros, V. The _C. elegans_ heterochronic gene _lin-4_ encodes small RNAs with

antisense complementarity to _lin-14_. _Cell_ 75, 843–854 (1993) Article  CAS  Google Scholar  * McCarthy, T. L. et al. Characterization of translational-control ribonucleic acid isolated

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_lin-14_ by _lin-4_ mediates temporal pattern formation in _C. elegans_. _Cell_ 75, 855–862 (1993) Article  CAS  Google Scholar  Download references AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND

AFFILIATIONS * Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, School of Medicine and Dentistry, and Center for RNA Biology, University of Rochester, Rochester, 14642, New York, USA Lynne E.

Maquat Authors * Lynne E. Maquat View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Lynne E. Maquat. ETHICS

DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The author declares no competing financial interests. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Maquat, L.

Eukaryotic antisense ahead of its time. _Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol_ 17, 204 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm.2016.1 Download citation * Published: 24 February 2016 * Issue Date: April 2016 *

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