Simple and efficient screening for ncRNAs (CANCELLED)

by Mr Aymeric Fouquier d'Herouel (KTH Computational Biology)

Tuesday 7 Sept 2010, 13:30 → 14:30 Europe/Stockholm

122:026

Non-coding (nc) RNAs have emerged as important and ubiquitous players in gene regulation across all kingdoms, adding new layers of complexity to the regulatory machinery. While challenging views about the junk content of higher organisms' genomes and partially explaining the high complexity vs low gene number observed in many organisms, ncRNAs exhibit a broad range of functions, raising exciting questions to an interdisciplinary community. We have performed a genome wide computational prediction of ncRNAs and their putative targets in Enterococcus faecalis, a commensal but opportunistic bacteria and major nosocomial pathogen. 45 selected loci were assessed experimentally using a newly developed method which allows us to verify the presence of a given transcript, while at the same time discerning primary from processed ones. We have discovered 29 novel ncRNAs, 10 putative novel mRNAs, and 16 antisense organizations. Functional analysis is ongoing on these candidates, yet first results exhibit highly interesting regulatory properties.