Poster abstracts

Poster number 40 submitted by Kate Ehrensberger

Zinc-dependent regulation of the adh1 antisense transcript in fission yeast

Kate M. Ehrensberger (Department of Molecular Genetics and the Center for RNA Biology, The Ohio State University), Amanda J. Bird (Department of Molecular Genetics, Department of Human Nutrition and the Center for RNA Biology, The Ohio State University)

Abstract:
Through transcriptome profiling of the Schizosaccharomyces pombe genome, we have identified a natural antisense transcript at the alcohol dehydrogenase 1 (adh1) locus that is induced in response to zinc-limitation. This antisense transcript (adh1AS) shows an expression pattern reciprocal to that of its mRNA partner, adh1. We have found that expression of the adh1AS transcript in low zinc is necessary to repress expression of adh1. Our data also shows that the adh1AS transcript is regulated at multiple levels. It is regulated at the transcriptional level by changes in intracellular zinc. In addition to this transcriptional regulation, when the adh1AS transcript is placed under a heterologous promoter, it preferentially accumulates under zinc-limiting conditions. We have found that this second level of regulation is dependent on expression of adh1, but is independent of RNAi. Together, these results suggest a novel mechanism of strand-specific RNA accumulation in response to changes in nutrient levels, and provide insight in determining how antisense transcripts can be regulated at multiple levels.

Keywords: yeast, antisense transcription, zinc