Circadian rhythms regulate various biological processes. In eukaryotes, they rely on a transcriptional-translational negative feedback loop consisting of central clock genes. The short half-life of the mRNA and proteins involved in regulation and the alternating waves of activation and repression result in circadian oscillations. At the cellular level, circadian rhythms are regulated in complex ways, including at the level of RNA. Circular RNAs are a group of noncoding, covalently closed RNAs. Originally, the prevailing view was that their formation was the result of defective exon splicing during maturation of mRNA precursors. Modern research has shown that they play an important role in cell biology, are more stable, and in some cases are even more abundant than their linear RNA counterparts. The role of circular RNAs has been demonstrated in various physiological and pathophysiological processes, but not yet in circadian rhythm regulation.
The aim of this master’s thesis was to investigate the possible influence of selected circular RNAs on the circadian rhythm of human cell cultures. Through a database search, 20 circular RNAs were selected, and their sequences were inserted into the pRR vector by molecular cloning and overexpressed in the U2OS cell line. In the final phase, we checked the effect of overexpression of circular RNAs on circadian oscillation by measuring luminescence and analyzed the results by fitting the Cosinor model to the obtained data in CosinorPy.
Based on the initial selection of circular RNAs, we successfully made pRR plasmid constructs for five different circular RNAs and also statistically confirmed the overexpression of four circular RNAs in U2OS cells for which we performed a circadian experiment. Unexpectedly, we discovered an effect of the empty pRR plasmid on the circadian rhythm of the cells, the exact cause of which remains to be further elucidated. We identified hsa_circ_0095570, derived from the gene encoding the long non-coding RNA H19, and hsa_circ_0000119, derived from the MAN1A2 gene, as the two most promising circular RNAs that caused changes in the circadian oscillation of U2OS cells.
The master's thesis provides the basis for further optimization of the transfection and the method for assessing circadian oscillation by measuring luminescence, which would provide us with a more comprehensive data set that would allow more reliable statistical analysis. Confirmation of the influence of the identified promising circular RNAs hsa_circ_0095570 and hsa_circ_0000119 on circadian rhythms would be followed by a functional analysis that could further define the biochemical background of their influence on cellular circadian oscillation.
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