PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Ailone Tichon
AU  - Noa Gil
AU  - Tal Havkin Solomon
AU  - Doron Lemze
AU  - Shalev Itzkovitz
AU  - Noam Stern-Ginossar
AU  - Igor Ulitsky
TI  - A conserved abundant cytoplasmic long noncoding RNA modulates repression of mRNAs by PUM2 in human cells
AID  - 10.1101/033423
DP  - 2015 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 033423
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/12/02/033423.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/12/02/033423.full
AB  - Thousands of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) genes are encoded in the human genome, and hundreds of them are evolutionary conserved, but their functions and modes of action remain largely obscure. Particularly enigmatic lncRNAs are those that are exported to the cytoplasm. We identified and characterized an abundant and highly conserved cytoplasmic lncRNA, which we denote Pumilio2-binding long intervening noncoding RNA (PUBLINC). Most of the sequence of this lncRNA is comprised of repetitive units that together contain at least 17 functional binding sites for PUM2, one of the two Pumilio homologs in mammals. Through binding to PUM2, PUBLINC modulates the mRNA levels and translation of PUM2 targets, enriched for genes involved in chromosome segregation during cell division. Our results suggest that some cytoplasmic lncRNAs function by modulating the activities of RNA binding proteins, an activity which positions them at key junctions of cellular signaling pathways.