Visualizing the structure and motion of the long noncoding RNA HOTAIR
- Rachel Spokoini-Stern1,2,5,
- Dimitar Stamov3,5,
- Hadass Jessel1,
- Lior Aharoni1,
- Heiko Haschke3,
- Jonathan Giron1,
- Ron Unger2,
- Eran Segal4,
- Almogit Abu-Horowitz1 and
- Ido Bachelet1
- 1Augmanity, Rehovot 7670308, Israel
- 2Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 5290002, Israel
- 3JPK Instruments AG, 12489 Berlin, Germany
- 4Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel
- Corresponding author: ido{at}augmanitynano.com
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↵5 These authors contributed equally to this work
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°. 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.
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Article is online at http://www.rnajournal.org/cgi/doi/10.1261/rna.074633.120.
- Received January 2, 2020.
- Accepted February 25, 2020.
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