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ALU A-to-I RNA Editing: Millions of Sites and Many Open Questions

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RNA Editing

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 2181))

Abstract

Alu elements are repetitive short interspersed elements prevalent in the primate genome. These repeats account for over 10% of the genome with more than a million highly similar copies. A direct outcome of this is an enrichment in long structures of stable dsRNA, which are the target of adenosine deaminases acting on RNAs (ADARs), the enzymes catalyzing A-to-I RNA editing. Indeed, A-to-I editing by ADARs is extremely abundant in primates: over a hundred million editing sites exist in their genomes. However, despite the radical increase in ADAR targets brought on by the introduction of Alu elements, the few evolutionary conserved editing sites manage to retain their editing levels. Here, we review and discuss the cost of having an unusual amount of dsRNA and editing in the transcriptome, as well as the opportunities it presents, which possibly contributed to accelerating primate evolution.

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Acknowledgments

EYL was supported by the International Collaboration Grant from the Jacki and Bruce Barron Cancer Research Scholars’ Program, a partnership of the Israel Cancer Research Fund and City of Hope, as supported by The Harvey L. Miller Family Foundation [grant number 205467].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

    Amos A. Schaffer & Erez Y. Levanon

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  1. Amos A. Schaffer
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  2. Erez Y. Levanon
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Correspondence to Erez Y. Levanon .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biosciences, Biotechnology and Biopharmaceutics, Institute of Biomembranes, Bioenergetics and Molecular Biotechnologies, National Research Council, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy, Bari, Italy

    Ernesto Picardi

  2. Department of Biosciences, Biotechnology and Biopharmaceutics, Institute of Biomembranes, Bioenergetics and Molecular Biotechnologies, National Research Council, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy, Bari, Italy

    Graziano Pesole

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Schaffer, A.A., Levanon, E.Y. (2021). ALU A-to-I RNA Editing: Millions of Sites and Many Open Questions. In: Picardi, E., Pesole, G. (eds) RNA Editing. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2181. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0787-9_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0787-9_9

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