INVESTIGADORES
CUCHER Marcela Alejandra
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
GENOME-WIDE IDENTIFICATION AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION OF 3?UTRS AND MICRORNA TARGETS IN THE NEGLECTED DISEASE PATHOGENS OF THE GENUS ECHINOCOCCUS
Autor/es:
MACCHIAROLI N; MALDONADO L; CUCHER M; GISMONDI MI; KAMENETZKY L; ROSENZVIT M
Reunión:
Congreso; Reunión Conjunta de Sociedades de Biociencias; 2017
Resumen:
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are key regulators of gene expression at the post-transcriptional level and play essential roles in different biological processes. MiRNAs silence target mRNAs by binding to complementary sequences in the 3′untranslated regions (3′UTRs). The parasitic helminths of the genus Echinococcus are the causative agents of echinococcosis, or hydatidosis, a zoonotic neglected disease. Here, we aimed to define a set of 3?UTRs and to predict miRNA targets sites in Echinococcus. We performed RNA-seq and developed a pipeline that integrates the transcriptomic data with available genomic data. We defined a confidence set of 4375 3′UTRs in E. canadensis and validated the expression and the length of a random subset by RT-PCR. We performed an in silico prediction of miRNA target sites and found 941 potential sites distributed in 724 3′UTRs. MiR-71 and miR-2 had the higher number of target genes, accounting for ∼30% of all target genes. Evolutionary conservation analysis of miRNA target sites in a set of orthologous 3′UTRs of Echinococcus and Taenia showed a significant decrease in the average number of nucleotide substitutions at miRNA target sites compared with random regions within those 3′UTRs (p