RNA editing is a post-transcriptional alteration of RNA sequences that, via insertions, deletions or base substitutions, can affect protein structure as well as RNA and protein expression. Recently, it has been suggested that RNA editing may be more frequent than previously thought. A great impediment, however, to a deeper understanding of this process is the paramount sequencing effort that ne...

APOBEC1 is the catalytic subunit of the complex that edits ApolipoproteinB (ApoB) mRNA, which specifically deaminates cytidine 6666 to uracil in the human transcript. The editing leads to the generation of a stop codon, resulting in the synthesis of a truncated form of ApoB. We have developed a method to quantitatively assay ApoB RNA editing in live cells by using a double fluorescent mCherry-E...

BACKGROUND Recently, it has become evident that RNA editing-related changes are important in the modulation of neuronal information processing. Alternatively edited transcripts, when meagerly present, are hard to detect. Significant functional consequences may result, however, from small differences in editing efficiency. Moreover, it is difficult to evaluate the ratio of edited transcripts. Th...

RNA editing usually affects only a fraction of expressed transcripts and there is a vast amount of variation in editing levels of ADAR (adenosine deaminase, RNA-specific) targets. Here we explore natural genetic variation affecting editing levels of particular sites in 81 natural strains of Drosophila melanogaster. The analysis of associations between editing levels and single-nucleotide polymo...

Adenosine (A) to inosine (I) RNA editing occurs widely in the human transcriptome, and a large proportion of editing sites are within untranslated regions (UTRs). MicroRNAs (miRNAs), an abundant class of regulatory genes, specify the expression of a large number of target genes by pairing to their 3' UTRs. To study the interplay between these two post-transcriptional events, we developed a comp...

Eusocial insects have evolved the capacity to generate adults with distinct morphological, reproductive and behavioural phenotypes from the same genome. Recent studies suggest that RNA editing might enhance the diversity of gene products at the post-transcriptional level, particularly to induce functional changes in the nervous system. Using head samples from the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex ech...

RNA editing is a post-transcriptional process that can act upon transcripts from mitochondrial, nuclear, and chloroplast genomes. In chloroplasts, single-nucleotide conversions in mRNAs via RNA editing occur at different frequencies across the plant kingdom. These range from several hundred edited sites in some mosses and ferns to lower frequencies in seed plants and the complete lack of RNA ed...

The mitochondrion is an important power generator in most eukaryotic cells. To preserve its function, many essential nuclear-encoded factors play specific roles in mitochondrial RNA metabolic processes, including RNA editing. RNA editing consists of post-transcriptional deamination, which alters specific nucleotides in transcripts to mediate gene expression. In plant cells, many pentatricopepti...

RNA editing is a post-transcriptional process occurring in a wide range of organisms. In human brain, the A-to-I RNA editing, in which individual adenosine (A) bases in pre-mRNA are modified to yield inosine (I), is the most frequent event. Modulating gene expression, RNA editing is essential for cellular homeostasis. Indeed, its deregulation has been linked to several neurological and neurodeg...