Pseudo Genes Act as MircoRNA Decoys

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A recent study reses our e of pseudoenes as non-functona recsof eouton by shon that tran-

scrpts produced fro pseudoenesreuate the effects of croRNAs(RNAs).

Poseno, Saena et al. nes-tated PTENP1, a pseudoene of the tuour suppressor ene PTEN .

They found seera bndn stesfor RNAs that taret PTEN nthe 3′ UTR of PTENP1 RNA.

Furtherore, n prostate cancerces, expresson of PTEN -taretnRNAs ed to donreuaton of 

both PTEN and PTENP1 RNAs,confrn that PTENP1 s subjectto RNA-edated reuaton.

Does RNA bndn by PTENP1 affect the tuour suppresse act-tes of PTEN? Oerexpresson of 

the PTENP1 3′ untransated reon(UTR) ed to ncreased ees of PTEN transcrpts and proten and to

roth nhbton n prostate cancerces. Ths derepresson of PTEN by the PTENP1 3′ UTR as abroated

n DICER-nu coon carcnoaces, hch are defecte n RNAprocessn. These fndns suest

that ature RNAs are needed forPTENP1 to reuate PTEN ees.

The authors aso dentfed foca

copy nuber osses at the PTENP1 ocus assocated th donreuatonof PTEN expresson n sapes fro

patents th sporadc coon cancer.They suest that PTENP1 coud beconsdered a tuour suppressor

ene and that there ht beseecton for oss of PTENP1 durntuoreness.

Ho despread s thsechans of reuatn cancerenes? The authors found RNA-

bndn stes n pseudoenes of other cancer-reated enes. They asodeonstrated a sar reatonshp

beteen the oncoene KRAS and tspseudoene KRAS1P  to that beteenPTEN and PTENP1. Because each

RNA has utpe tarets andbecause enes can often hae seerareated pseudoenes, copex

netorks of reuaton ay exst.Ths decoy echans ay not beted to pseudoene transcrpts,

so the next steps be to nes-tate hether other ene-codnand non-codn RNAs can act as

trans-reuators by RNA bndnand ho eneray ths echansappes outsde of cancer enes. The

nshts fro ths study ay asohep to dentfy ne therapeutctarets n cancer.

 Meera Swami

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER Poliseno, L. et al. 

A coding-independent function of gene and

pseudogene mRNAs regulates tumour biology.

Nature 465, 1033–1038 (2010)

S m A L L R N A S

Psudogns at as miroRNA doys

I   MA  GE  S  O U R  C E 

R e s e a R c h h i g h l i g h t s

NATURE REviEwS | cANceR  vOlUmE 10 | AUgUST 2010

Nature Reviews Cancer  | AOP, pubshed onne 15 Juy 2010; do:10.1038/nrc2898

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