A strand-specific transcriptome sequencing strategy, directional ligation sequencing or DeLi-seq, was employed to profile antisense transcriptome of Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Under both normal and heat shock conditions, we found that polyadenylated antisense transcripts are broadly expressed while distinct expression patterns were observed for protein-coding and non-coding loci. Dominant antis...

Recent studies have demonstrated that natural antisense transcripts, which are complementary sequences to messenger RNA, have important cellular functions such as the stabilization and silencing of mRNA. However, the possible contribution of antisense transcripts in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development has not been described. Therefore, we s...

Both siRNA and antisense oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) inhibit the expression of a complementary gene. In this study, fundamental differences in the considerations for RNA interference and antisense ODNs are reported. In siRNA and antisense ODN databases, positive correlations are observed between the cost to open the mRNA target self-structure and the stability of the duplex to be formed, meani...

Antisense oligodeoxynucleotides can selectively block disease-causing genes, and cancer genes have been chosen as potential targets for antisense drugs to treat cancer. However, nonspecific side effects have clouded the true antisense mechanism of action and hampered clinical development of antisense therapeutics. Using DNA microarrays, we have conducted a systematic characterization of gene ex...

Plasmids containing an antisense fragment of the sigma(32) gene were constructed and introduced into Escherichia coli cells. Downregulation of the sigma(32)-mediated stress response was evaluated under heat shock and ethanol stress and during the production of organophosphorus hydrolase (OPH). Northern blot analyses revealed that sigma(32) sense mRNA was virtually undetected in antisense-produc...

An important objective in developing new drugs is the achievement of high specificity to maximize curing effect and minimize side-effects, and high specificity is an integral part of the antisense approach. The antisense techniques have been extensively developed from the application of simple long, regular antisense RNA (asRNA) molecules to highly modified versions conferring resistance to nuc...

Malignant glioma, the most common human brain cancer, is almost uniformly fatal. Median survival is less than one year. The principal strategies of gene therapy for treatment of gliomas, including antisense approach, have been proposed comming from 1990s [1, 2, 3, 4]. The antisense oligonucleotides become the important tool of anti-cancer approach [5, 6]. The "discovery" of antisense approach w...

Genome-wide transcription profiling has revealed extensive expression of non-coding RNAs antisense to genes, yet their functions, if any, remain to be understood. In this study, we perform a systematic analysis of sense-antisense expression in response to genetic and environmental changes in yeast. We find that antisense expression is associated with genes of larger expression variability. This...

The EWS-Fli1 fusion gene, resulting from a t(11;22) translocation, plays a key role in the Ewing’s sarcoma pathogenesis. In the past, a 25mer phosphorothioate antisense oligodeoxynucleotide, a structured 30mer phosphorothioate/phosphodiester antisense oligodeoxynucleotide, and an antisense siRNA, delivered either free, by vectors or intracellularly expressed, were found potent in various in vit...

Selecting effective antisense target sites on a given mRNA molecule constitutes a major problem in antisense therapeutics. By trial-and-error, only 1 in 18 (6%) of antisense oligonucleotides designed to target the primary RNA transcript of tumor necrosis factor-a (TNF-a) strongly inhibited TNF-a synthesis. Subsequent studies showed that the area in RNA targeted by antisense oligonucleotides cou...