A Mechanistic and Functional Analysis of Highly Conserved Long Intergenic Noncoding RNA 00867

Abstract

We studied the functional significance of the long intergenic noncoding RNA 00867 (linc00867), which is highly conserved in mammals. Linc00867 has a 90% identical DNA sequence in the human and mouse genome, and it is located near developmental genes. However, the functional significance of this highly conserved lincRNA is not known. Thus, we tested the hypothesis that linc00867 regulates mouse development. To achieve this, we first determined where the linc00867 expression occurs in mice. We downloaded publicly available RNA-sequencing (RNAseq) datasets to examine linc00867 expression in different organs and conducted quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) on mice organs. To determine the functional role of linc00867, we constructed a transgenic knockout mouse utilizing the Cre-Lox system. We monitored the growth and phenotypic characteristics of the linc00867 knockout mouse model and control mice to determine its functional role. Our results demonstrate that lincRNA00867 is only expressed in testes. We also observed that floxed linc00867 homozygous mice are fertile and viable without any apparent phenotypic changes. Also, single allele deletion of linc00867 did not produce any apparent phenotype. We did not observe any changes in pregnancy weight or mouse growth trajectory following single allele deletion of linc00867 in heterozygous KO mice. Currently, we are in process of generating homozygous linc00867 KO mice, and findings will be published in the future.