Guest Editors
Miguel Hueso
Bellvitge Hospital; IDIBELL, Barcelona
Miguel Hueso (MD, PhD) is a nephrologist (MD) working in the Dialysis Unit of the Bellvitge Hospital and the IDIBELL Research Institute. From a prior interest in the mechanisms of allograft rejection, he is currently leading a research group trying to use immunomodulation to reverse chronic vascular lesions. Regarding the topic of ncRNAs, his research group has used an in vivo siRNA approach to silence the CD40 costimulatory molecule in a mouse model of atherosclerosis progression, showing a decrease in NF-kB activation, in macrophage infiltration, and in the severity and progression of vascular lesions of atherosclerosis. He has also studied the off-target effects of this siRNA therapy in kidneys as well as the variability in 3’UTR structures that can mask the silencing effects of miRNA/siRNAs. Over the span of his career, Dr. Hueso has published more than 50 peer reviewed papers and served as reviewer in different journals in topics related to nephrology, transplantation, and ncRNA expression in human diseases.
Estanislao Navarro
IDIBELL, Barcelona
Estanislao Navarro received his BSc and PhD in Biology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain). He continued his postdoctoral research at the LRF-ICR of London and at the IMIM of Barcelona prior to holding a permanent position at the Idibell Institute of Barcelona. His major area of expertise is molecular and cellular biology of the immune system. In the last few years, his research has focused on the changes in gene expression during atherosclerosis progression in humans and animal models. At present, he is particularly interested in the expression of ncRNAs (miRNAs, lncRNAs, circRNAs) in immune cells in human disease, in the elucidation of the regulatory networks established among miRNAs and mRNAs (and other lncRNAs) as well as in the role of 3’UTR differential splicing isoforms in the regulation of miRNA accession to these regions. Over the span of his career, Dr Navarro has published more than 50 peer reviewed papers, and has served as reviewer in several journals in topics related to ncRNAs.
Collection Overview
There is an increasing interest in the regulatory effects of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), the “genomic dark matter” not translated into proteins despite representing most of the transcribed human genome. Based on their length, regulatory ncRNAs can be segregated into two groups: those smaller than 200 nucleotides that are considered as small (sncRNAs), and those longer than 200 nucleotides or long noncoding RNAs (lncRNA), representing over the 80% of the ncRNAs. A current key spot of interest in the regulation of gene expression is the study of the molecules (nucleic acids, proteins, or peptides, globally known as the “ncRNA interactome”) interacting with key regulator ncRNAs to control different physiological processes.
In this collection we will introduce a number of technical developments to characterize the ncRNA interactome. We aim to balance the presence of high throughput methods that yield catalogues of tissue-specific ncRNA expression, with work-intensive approaches that characterize individual interactions among lncRNAs/miRNAs/mRNAs and proteins, and with bioinformatic methods that process all this information to predict interactions. Lastly, we will give special attention to the generation of genetic information diversity in the form of ncRNA splicing isoforms (considering also the 5’ and 3’ UTRs of mRNAs) and how this has a qualitative impact on the ncRNA interactome.
