Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1EW, United Kingdom.
Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. 2018 Jul 2;10(7):a032284. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a032284.
RNA G-quadruplex (rG4) secondary structures are proposed to play key roles in fundamental biological processes that include the modulation of transcriptional, co-transcriptional, and posttranscriptional events. Recent methodological developments that include predictive algorithms and structure-based sequencing have enabled the detection and mapping of rG4 structures on a transcriptome-wide scale at high sensitivity and resolution. The data generated by these studies provide valuable insights into the potentially diverse roles of rG4s in biology and open up a number of mechanistic hypotheses. Herein we highlight these methodologies and discuss the associated findings in relation to rG4-related biological mechanisms.
RNA 四链体 (rG4) 二级结构被认为在包括转录、共转录和转录后事件调节等基本生物过程中发挥关键作用。最近的方法学发展,包括预测算法和基于结构的测序,使得能够在高灵敏度和分辨率下在全转录组范围内检测和绘制 rG4 结构。这些研究产生的数据为 rG4 在生物学中的潜在多样化作用提供了有价值的见解,并提出了许多机制假设。本文中,我们重点介绍了这些方法,并讨论了与 rG4 相关的生物学机制相关的发现。