Research

Sense-antisense pairs in mammals: functional and evolutionary considerations

Pedro AF Galante^1,2 , Daniel O Vidal¹ , Jorge E de Souza¹ , Anamaria A Camargo¹ and Sandro J de Souza¹

¹  Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, São Paulo Branch, Hospital Alemão Oswaldo Cruz, Rua João Juliao 245, 1 andar, São Paulo, SP 01323-903, Brazil

²  Department Of Biochemistry, University of São Paulo, Av. Prof. Lineu Prestes, 748 - sala 351, São Paulo, SP 05508-900, Brazil

author email corresponding author email

Genome Biology 2007, 8:R40doi:10.1186/gb-2007-8-3-r40

Published:	19 March 2007

Subject areas: Molecular biology, Genome studies, Evolution

Abstract

Background

A significant number of genes in mammalian genomes are being found to have natural antisense transcripts (NATs). These sense-antisense (S-AS) pairs are believed to be involved in several cellular phenomena.

Results

Here, we generated a catalog of S-AS pairs occurring in the human and mouse genomes by analyzing different sources of expressed sequences available in the public domain plus 122 massively parallel signature sequencing (MPSS) libraries from a variety of human and mouse tissues. Using this dataset of almost 20,000 S-AS pairs in both genomes we investigated, in a computational and experimental way, several putative roles that have been assigned to NATs, including gene expression regulation. Furthermore, these global analyses allowed us to better dissect and propose new roles for NATs. Surprisingly, we found that a significant fraction of NATs are artifacts produced by genomic priming during cDNA library construction.

Conclusion

We propose an evolutionary and functional model in which alternative polyadenylation and retroposition account for the origin of a significant number of functional S-AS pairs in mammalian genomes.