Research: Control of Myelination

Bauer NM et al. Myelin Basic Protein synthesis is regulated by small non-coding RNA 715. EMBO Rep. 2012 Jun 29. doi: 10.1038/embor.2012.97. [Epub ahead of print]


Oligodendroglial myelin basic protein (MBP) synthesis is essential for myelin formation in the central nervous system. During oligodendrocyte differentiation, MBP mRNA is kept in a translationally silenced state while intracellularly transported, until neuron-derived signals initiate localized MBP translation. Here we identify the small non-coding RNA 715 (sncRNA715) as an inhibitor of MBP translation. SncRNA715 localizes to cytoplasmic granular structures and associates with MBP mRNA transport granule components. We also detect increased levels of sncRNA715 in demyelinated chronic human multiple sclerosis lesions, which contain MBP mRNA but lack MBP protein

DNA contains the genes and from DNA, there is RNA is transcribed which contains the coding sequence of proteins. The sequence of nucleotides is translated into the production of amio acids, which are then made into proteins.  This is the case for all proteins including myelin proteins. This study shows that there is a non-coding piece of RNA and this inhibits the translation of MBP-related RNA into MBP protein. This is increases in demyelinated MS lesions and may serve to block myelination and importantly remyelination. Therefore blockade of this RNA may help lesions repair their myelin

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