A short antisense oligonucleotide masking a unique intronic motif prevents skipping of a critical exon in spinal muscular atrophy
UMass Chan Affiliations
Department of MedicineDocument Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2009-05-12Keywords
Base PairingBase Sequence
Cell Line
Down-Regulation
Exons
Humans
Introns
Muscular Atrophy, Spinal
Oligonucleotides, Antisense
RNA Splicing
Survival of Motor Neuron 2 Protein
Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology
Life Sciences
Medicine and Health Sciences
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is the leading genetic cause of infant mortality. Most SMA cases are associated with the low levels of SMN owing to deletion of Survival Motor Neuron 1 (SMN1). SMN2, a nearly identical copy of SMN1, fails to compensate for the loss of SMN1 due to predominant skipping of exon 7. Hence, correction of aberrant splicing of SMN2 exon 7 holds the potential for cure of SMA. Here we report an 8-mer antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) to have a profound stimulatory response on correction of aberrant splicing of SMN2 exon 7 by binding to a unique GC-rich sequence located within intron 7 of SMN2. We confirm that the splicing-switching ability of this short ASO comes with a high degree of specificity and reduced off-target effect compared to larger ASOs targeting the same sequence. We further demonstrate that a single low nanomolar dose of this 8-mer ASO substantially increases the levels of SMN and a host of factors including Gemin 2, Gemin 8, ZPR1, hnRNP Q and Tra2-beta1 known to be down-regulated in SMA. Our findings underscore the advantages and unmatched potential of very short ASOs in splicing modulation in vivo.Source
RNA Biol. 2009 Jul;6(3):341-50. Epub 2009 Jul 14. Link to article on publisher's websiteDOI
10.4161/rna.6.3.8723Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/39417PubMed ID
19430205Related Resources
Link to Article in PubMedae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.4161/rna.6.3.8723