Elsevier

Genomics

Volume 90, Issue 3, September 2007, Pages 397-406
Genomics

Dissecting the human BDNF locus: Bidirectional transcription, complex splicing, and multiple promoters

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ygeno.2007.05.004Get rights and content
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Abstract

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a member of the nerve growth factor family of neurotrophins, has central roles in the development, physiology, and pathology of the nervous system. We have elucidated the structure of the human BDNF gene, identified alternative transcripts, and studied their expression in adult human tissues and brain regions. In addition, the transcription initiation sites for human BDNF transcripts were determined and the activities of BDNF promoters were analyzed in transient overexpression assays. Our results show that the human BDNF gene has 11 exons and nine functional promoters that are used tissue and brain-region specifically. Furthermore, noncoding natural antisense RNAs that display complex splicing and expression patterns are transcribed in the BDNF gene locus from the antiBDNF gene (approved gene symbol BDNFOS). We show that BDNF and antiBDNF transcripts form dsRNA duplexes in the brain in vivo, suggesting an important role for antiBDNF in regulating BDNF expression in human.

Keywords

Neurotrophic factor
Brain
neuron
Alternative splicing
BDNF
Natural antisense transcript
RNA duplex
Lin-7c/Mals-3/veli3

Cited by (0)

Sequence data from this article have been deposited in the GenBank Data Libraries under Accession Nos. EF674517 - EF674521 and EF689009 - EF689021 (human BDNF mRNAs), and EF689022 - EF689042 (human antiBDNF RNAs).

1

These authors contributed equally to this work.