Abstract
Plants have several mechanisms to adapt various environments. For the purpose of detecting novel RNAs which contribute to environmental responses, we have studied gene expression profiles of Arabidopsis thaliana under some stress conditions using tiling arrays. Then we analyzed the profiles by ARTADE which is a genome wide gene structure prediction program, and found that there were novel antisense RNAs in a lot of gene loci. (Matsui et al.) (2008)PCP 49:1135)
In this study, we tried to verify some detected novel antisense RNAs. We conducted the reverse transcription reaction using strand-specific primers designed every genes and conducted PCR after RNase treatment to inspect existences of sense RNAs and antisense RNAs. Then we examined gene structures by determining the cDNA sequences.
As a result, we successfully confirmed the existence of predicted antisense RNAs. In addition, according to the increased expression of sense RNAs, antisense RNAs tended to come to exist. Furthermore, the antisense RNAs have exon-exon junctions with the same position as their sense RNAs. It is suggested that these antisense RNAs are transcribed from their sense RNAs.
