Does Increased RNA Editing Cause Cardiovascular Diseases?

Prof. Erez Levanon from the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences at Bar-Ilan University and his colleagues, examined the connection between the RNA editing process and cardiovascular diseases. A process of RNA editing, an alteration of the RNA sequence, enables the production of proteins beyond those included in the DNA sequence. Additionally, RNA editing is essential to prevent undesired immune activation, as studies in recent years demonstrated that dysregulated editing causes an inflammatory response. In a study, that was published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology, the researchers analyzed RNA from the GTEx project, an international research database for the research of gene expression across various body tissues, and RNA from cardiomyopathy patients. The researchers observed an increase in RNA editing on non-coding regions in both atherosclerosis patients and patients with various types of cardiomyopathies. In atherosclerosis patients, an increase in RNA editing was observed in protein-coding regions as well, especially in the IGFBP7 gene, which has already been suggested as a biomarker of atherosclerosis and heart failure. Moreover, researchers have shown that these changes are accompanied by increased expression of inflammatory genes. Findings in Prof. Levanon and his colleagues' current work show that RNA editing is a key player in several cardiovascular diseases, and further research in this area will help in understanding the development and prevention of these diseases.

Read more >>