AUTHOR=Sarangdhar Mayuresh A. , Chaubey Divya , Bhatt Abhishek , KM Monisha , Kumar Manish , Ranjan Shashi , Pillai Beena 

TITLE=A Novel Long Non-coding RNA, durga Modulates Dendrite Density and Expression of kalirin in Zebrafish

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2017

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/molecular-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnmol.2017.00095

DOI=10.3389/fnmol.2017.00095

ISSN=1662-5099

ABSTRACT=<p>Kalirin, a key player in axonal development, nerve growth and synaptic re-modeling, is implicated in many pathological conditions like schizophrenia and autism-spectrum disorders. Alternative promoters and splicing lead to functionally distinct isoforms, but the post-transcriptional regulation of Kalirin has not been studied. Here, we report a novel non-coding RNA, which we name <italic>durga</italic>, arising from the first exon of kalirin a (<italic>kalrna</italic>) in the antisense orientation in zebrafish. The <italic>kalrna</italic> and <italic>durga</italic> transcripts are barely detectable during early development, but steadily increase by 24 hours post-fertilization (hpf) as the brain develops. Over-expression of <italic>durga</italic> in the zebrafish embryo led to an increase in <italic>kalrna</italic> expression. The morphology of the neurons cultured from <italic>durga</italic> injected embryos had significantly fewer and shorter dendrites. Although <italic>durga</italic> has no apparent sequence homolog in mammals, based on gene synteny, we found a non-coding RNA arising from the 5′ end of the human <italic>Kalrn</italic> gene and expressed in the human neuronal cell line, SH-SY5Y. We propose that the zebrafish lncRNA <italic>durga</italic> maintains dendritic length and density through regulation of <italic>kalrna</italic> expression and this may have further implications in mammalian systems.</p>