Secondary structure-stretched forms of long intron RNA products from the view point of initiation of chromosome homologs somatic pairing

Abstract

In different types of chromosome pairing (meiotic, somatic, and sister chromatids pairing) initiation stages are less elucidated. In somatic homolog pairing initiation, the long intron RNA products interference may play the essential role. The strongest somatic pairing in Drosophila melanogaster 28B1-B2 locus and its enrichment by long bi-directional transcripts prone us to analyze the pre-mRNA secondary structures. The comparison of sense (pre-mRNA) and antisense (lncRNA) portions corresponding to the lengthy introns for some others’ genes loci reveals the significant correlation of stretched folding form lengths with the homologue pairing percentage. Also for 28B1-B2 locus, the most significant homologue pairing is justified by the plurality of sense and antisense RNA variants for lengthy introns. The stretched forms of long intron products with multiple stem-loop clusters widely presented for sense and antisense strands may interact by multiple loops during transcription being connected to different chromosomes and hypothetically may serve for the pairing initiation. Stretched rod-like or V-shape-like are dominating forms for the whole intron RNA products or their central portions while predominantly star-like for others intron fragments.

Keywords:

• long intron
• pre-mRNA folding
• homolog pairing

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Protsevsky R. and Hohrin D. B. for the technical assistance.