NATs (natural antisense transcripts) are important regulators of eukaryotic gene expression. Interference between the expression of protein-coding sense transcripts and the corresponding NAT is well documented. In the present review, we focus on an additional, higher-order role of NATs that is currently emerging. The recent discovery of endogenous siRNAs (short interfering RNAs), as well as NAT-induced transcriptional gene silencing, are key to the proposed novel function of NATs.

Keywords:
endogenous short interfering RNA, monoallelic gene expression, natural antisense transcript, non-protein-coding RNA, random imprinting, transcriptional silencing
© The Authors Journal compilation © 2010 Biochemical Society
2010
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