Naturally occurring antisense RNA of histone H2a in mouse cultured cell lines.
BACKGROUND
An antisense transcript of histone H2a that has no significant protein-coding region has been cloned from a mouse full-length cDNA library. In the present study, we evaluated this transcript by using RT-PCR and compared the expression patterns of the sense and antisense transcripts by using quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR).


RESULTS
This antisense RNA was expressed in three mouse cell lines. We call it ASH2a. ASH2a includes not only the complementary sequence of the transcript of Hist2h2aa2 (a replication-dependent histone H2a gene), but also that of the promoter of Hist2h2aa2. The upstream genomic sequence of the transcription start site of the ASH2a-coding gene (ASH2a) lacks both CCAAT and TATA boxes. This absence suggests that the regulation of ASH2a is different from that of the replication-dependent histone H2a genes. Findings from qRT-PCR indicated that the expression pattern of ASH2a was different from that of Hist2h2aa2. Expression of Hist2h2aa2 peaked at 2 to 4 h during S-phase, but that of ASH2a peaked at 1 h.


CONCLUSIONS
We showed the existence of ASH2a, a histone H2a antisense RNA, in mouse cultured cells. The expression pattern of ASH2a is different from that of the sense RNA.
Nishida
Hiromi
H
Laboratory for Genome Exploration Research Group, RIKEN Genomic Sciences Center, RIKEN Yokohama Institute, Yokohama, Kanagawa 230-0045, Japan. hnishida@gsc.riken.jp
Tomaru
Yasuhiro
Y
Oho
Yuko
Y
Hayashizaki
Yoshihide
Y
D000818:Animals; D002453:Cell Cycle / Q000235:genetics; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006657:Histones / Q000235:genetics*; D051379:Mice; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D016372:RNA, Antisense / Q000032:analysis*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D016385:TATA Box
D006657:Histones; D016372:RNA, Antisense