Page 10 - IBRO_RNA School_Abstract Book

Exploring online resources to understand regulatory RNAs

Dheeraj Chandra Joshi

CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology,

Mathura Road, Delhi, India

Advancements in the sequencing technologies and informatics have amassed
large amounts of data on regulatory RNAs in humans as well as
different model organisms. Also, there has been an increasing interest in
deciphering the function and mode of action of regulatory RNAs. There exist a

number of online resources and tools that aid the experimental
researchers studying regulatory RNAs in formulating hypotheses and
designing experiments thus saving a lot of time. In this classroom session,
participants will be introduced to a web based browser called UCSC genome
browser that enables users to search for their gene/RNA of interest, explore its
genomic loci and look for presence of orthologues in other organisms.
Additionally, participants will be introduced to online databases such as miRBase,
NONCODE, GTEx portal, Allen Brain Atlas and ZFIN that provide the expression data
of regulatory RNAs in development and disease. It will be followed by a

discussion on basics of primer designing for measuring the expression
levels of the RNA of interest and demonstration using another web based tool
named Primer3. Lastly, the participants will be introduced to an approach to
design modified oligos called locked nucleic acids (LNAs) for the knockdown of
miRNAs.