Microarrays Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Microarrays, including details on experiments, designs, statistics, analysis, software.

Iron regulation and the cell cycle: identification of an iron-responsive element in the 3'-untranslated region of human cell division cycle 14A mRNA by a refined microarray-based screening strategy.

Sanchez M, Galy B, Dandekar T, Bengert P, Vainshtein Y, Stolte J, Muckenthaler MU, Hentze MW

European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany.

Iron regulatory proteins (IRPs) 1 and 2 post-transcriptionally control mammalian iron homeostasis by binding to iron-responsive elements (IREs), conserved RNA stem-loop structures located in the 5'- or 3'-untranslated regions of genes involved in iron metabolism (e.g. FTH1, FTL, and TFRC). To identify novel IRE-containing mRNAs, we integrated biochemical, biocomputational, and microarray-based experimental approaches. IRP/IRE messenger ribonucleoproteins were immunoselected, and their mRNA composition was analyzed using an IronChip microarray enriched for genes predicted computationally to contain IRE-like motifs. Among different candidates, this report focuses on a novel IRE located in the 3'-untranslated region of the cell division cycle 14A mRNA. We show that this IRE motif efficiently binds both IRP1 and IRP2. Differential splicing of cell division cycle 14A produces IRE- and non-IRE-containing mRNA isoforms. Interestingly, only the expression of the IRE-containing mRNA isoforms is selectively increased by cellular iron deficiency. This work describes a new experimental strategy to explore the IRE/IRP regulatory network and uncovers a previously unrecognized regulatory link between iron metabolism and the cell cycle.

Published 7 August 2006 in J Biol Chem, 281(32): 22865-74.
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