Poster abstracts

Poster number 81 submitted by Mengdi Liu

Analysis of the role of a long non-coding RNA in cancer

Mengdi Liu (Case Western)

Abstract:
Analysis of the role of a long non-coding RNA in cancer

Mengdi Liu and Saba Valadkhan

Department of Biochemistry, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH 44106
Long non-protein-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are pervasively transcribed throughout eukaryotic genomes. Supporting the biological relevance of these transcripts, multiple studies have shown that significant numbers of long ncRNAs are regulated during development and exhibit cell type-specific expression, localize to specific subcellular compartments and are associated with human diseases. It has been shown that the expression of a number of lncRNAs is perturbed in cancer, suggesting that some lncRNAs may be important in the process of malignant transformation or other aspects of biogenesis of cancers.
To gain further insight into the role of lncRNAs in human cancers, we analyzed the expression level of a long intergenic RNA (BORG) in human lung cancer tissues, adjacent normal tissues and different cancer cell lines. We are in the process of defining the impact of plasmid-mediated overexpression and shRNA-mediated knockdown of this lncRNA in NMuMg, NME and D2 breast cancer cell lines. These studies will elucidate the possible function of a lncRNA in malignant transformation and cancer progression.

Keywords: lnc RNA, Cancer