Visualizing the structure and motion of the long noncoding RNA HOTAIR
- Rachel Spokoini-Stern1,
- Dimitar Stamov2,
- Hadass Jessel1,
- Lior Aharoni1,
- Heiko Haschke2,
- Jonathan Giron1,
- Ron Unger3,
- Eran Segal4,
- Almogit Abu-Horowitz1 and
- Ido Bachelet1,5
- ↵* Corresponding author; email: dogbach{at}gmail.com
Abstract
Long noncoding RNA molecules (lncRNAs) are estimated to account for the majority of eukaryotic genomic transcripts, and have been associated with multiple diseases in humans. However, our understanding of their structure-function relationships is scarce, with structural evidence coming mostly from indirect biochemical approaches or computational predictions. Here we describe direct visualization of the lncRNA HOTAIR (HOx Transcript AntIsense RNA) using atomic force microscopy (AFM) in nucleus-like conditions at 37 degrees. Our observations reveal that HOTAIR has a discernible, although flexible, shape. Fast AFM scanning enabled the quantification of the motion of HOTAIR, and provided visual evidence of physical interactions with genomic DNA segments. Our report provides a biologically-plausible description of the anatomy and intrinsic properties of HOTAIR, and presents a framework for studying the structural biology of lncRNAs.
Keywords
- Received January 2, 2020.
- Accepted February 25, 2020.
- Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the RNA Society
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