Tuesday, April 7, 2015

XIST and pol III in XCI

X-chromosome inactive specific transcript (or Xist) is involved in X chromosome inactivation (XCI).
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Silencing or kd of Xist in somatic cells only produces low level reactivation in XCI.
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Those reactivated XCI transcripts are non-coding and upstream of the regulatory region contains SINEs (Short-INterspersed repetitive Elements targeted by RNA pol III).
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Involvement of RNA pol III?
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Kd of RNA pol III changed chromatin epigenetic landscape. A promising sign.
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Refers to work by Prof Zhang Li-feng (Nanyang Technological University)