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Review
. 2021 Jul 2:26:161-173.
doi: 10.1016/j.omtn.2021.06.023. eCollection 2021 Dec 3.

Regulatory roles of tRNA-derived RNA fragments in human pathophysiology

Kush Kumar Pandey  1 , Deeksha Madhry  1 , Y S Ravi Kumar  2 , Shivani Malvankar  1 , Leena Sapra  1 , Rupesh K Srivastava  1 , Sankar Bhattacharyya  3 , Bhupendra Verma  1
Affiliations
Review

Regulatory roles of tRNA-derived RNA fragments in human pathophysiology

Kush Kumar Pandey et al. Mol Ther Nucleic Acids. .

Abstract

Hundreds of tRNA genes and pseudogenes are encoded by the human genome. tRNAs are the second most abundant type of RNA in the cell. Advancement in deep-sequencing technologies have revealed the presence of abundant expression of functional tRNA-derived RNA fragments (tRFs). They are either generated from precursor (pre-)tRNA or mature tRNA. They have been found to play crucial regulatory roles during different pathological conditions. Herein, we briefly summarize the discovery and recent advances in deciphering the regulatory role played by tRFs in the pathophysiology of different human diseases.

Keywords: RNases; human diseases; lncRNA; pathophysiology; sncRNA; stress; tRFs; tRNA processing; tiRNA; tsRNA.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic diagram representing processing of tRNA by various endonucleases for maturation and generation of tRNA-derived fragments Precursor tRNA is processed by RNase P and RNase Z at the 5′ end and 3′ end, respectively. tRNA intron is processed by the TSEN complex (not shown). Cleavage mediated by angiogenin and Dicer leads to generation of tiRNA halves and tRFs as shown in the diagram.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic representation of roles of tRNA-derived RNA fragments in various human pathophysiologies
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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