Understanding the Genomic Ultraconservations: T-UCRs and Cancer.

Abstract

Transcribed ultraconserved regions (T-UCRs) are genomic regions conserved across large evolutionary distances, which encode for noncoding RNAs that serve as regulators of gene expression. Although T-UCRs have been linked to multiple aspects of mammalian gene regulation, the roles of their extreme evolutionary conservation remain largely unexplained. Growing body of literature is now focusing on T-UCRs as potential cancer biomarkers or as new drug targets. Here we present an overview of the discoveries so far published about the role of T-UCR in cancer and disease.