Team:HokkaidoU Japan/Projects/Overview/Background

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Background

Discovering of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) and reverse transcription of Virus collapsed the Central dogma that was declared by Francis Click. ncRNA does not encode any proteins, and it had been thought that they don’t have any function. However, now we know they have many functions. For example, some ncRNA reduce the efficiency of translation, while others promote that. (C Claudia et al., 2012[1]).

There is ncRNA that is called anti-sense RNA (asRNA). asRNA is a kind of RNA which down regulates the translation. It has complement sequence of target mRNA, and reduce the translation efficiency by hybridizing. We can synthesize asRNA easily, but there is no clear method to make stable, high efficient asRNA.

Fig. 1 asRNA hybridizes with target mRNA and interrupts entry of ribosome
Fig. 2 Stem structure stabilizes asRNA

In this situation, Nakashima who is a researcher of AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) discovered asRNA that is sandwiched by 38 base pairs repeated sequence is stable and have high efficiency for translation regulation (N Nakashima et al., 2006[2]).

Many iGEM teams prepare their project using asRNA, but how many teams use the asRNA that is based on a clear design concept? So, this year, we provide you a BioBrick standardized asRNA.

This asRNA will assure you that

  • It’s based on a clear design concept.
  • It has calculated an ideal second structure.
  • High translation regulation efficiency based on our results.

By using such asRNA, we did the projects below.

  • Construct our asRNA that has modified stem sequence.
  • Construct B0034 -most popular RBS- specific asRNA, and regulate translation efficiency generally.
  • Construct various length asRNA and discover the optimum length of asRNA.

In conventional iGEM projects, many teams only transform plasmids, but if you use our asRNA, you can regulate genome gene expression. Our project provides not only high efficient asRNA but also new standpoint of your project.

We used hybridizing of mRNA and specific asRNA to resemble love of RNA, and named our project “RNA in Love” Let's watch over RNA in love!



  1. C Claudiaet al. (2012) Long non-coding antisense RNA controls Uchl1 translation through an embedded SINEB2 repeat. Nature 491: 7424 454-
  1. N Nakashima et al. (2006) Paired termini stabilize antisense RNAs and enhance conditional gene silencing in Escherichia coli. Nucleic Acids Res 34: 20 e138

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