Anti-LARP7 monoclonal antibody Made to order

The LARP7 gene, is a member of the LARP family and is implicated in the formation and stability of the non-coding RNA 7SK, inhibition of P-TEFb-dependent transcription and telomerase assembly. All LARP7 mutations which have been identified so far are frameshift mutations, with the exception of one in an Iranian family which was a substitution in a splice donor site. In this report, we showed that LARP7 splice donor site mutation results in aberrant splicing and we also described how Drosophila Larp7 is required for the formation of long-term behavioral memory.

The small nuclear noncoding RNA (snRNA) 7SK is a highly conserved noncoding RNA of 331 nucleotides in animals, which is present in a nuclear ribonucleoprotein complex with proteins such as methylphosphate capping enzyme (MePCE), hexamethylene bisacetamide-inducible proteins 1 and 2 (HEXIM1 and HEXIM2) and La-related protein 7 (Larp7). Regulating the activity of the positive transcription elongation factor b (P-TEFb) is the key function of 7SK noncoding RNA. Recently, we have shown that 7SK snRNA over-expression reduces human embryonic kidney 293T cell line viability. Here, we attempt to monitor the expression level of 7SK snRNA in different human cell lines and cancer tissues. Examination of 7SK transcription either in cell lines or in different malignant tissues including blood (CML), breast and colon showed that 7SK expression significantly down-regulated in cancer. Similar to human cancer tissues and cell lines, 7SK transcriptional level decreased in stem cells in comparison with differentiated cell types. In this regard, over-expression of 7SK snRNA might be a powerful tool for blocking cancer progression by controlling the activity of P-TEFb.