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UCLA Tool Charts Thousands of mRNA Stability Variants Linked to Autoimmune Risk

The Nature Genetics study uses metabolically labeled datasets to distinguish transcription from decay-driven gene regulation.

Overview

  • UCLA researchers developed RNAtracker, a freely available software method that classifies whether genetic variants act through mRNA production or through transcript stability.
  • Applying the approach to publicly available human cell line data, the team identified more than 5,000 variants across 665 genes that alter mRNA stability.
  • Many stability-regulated genes map to immune pathways, particularly innate immunity, with several variants overlapping loci previously tied to autoimmune diseases.
  • Modeling linked expression patterns of stability-regulated genes to conditions including allergic rhinitis, lupus, diabetes mellitus and multiple sclerosis.
  • The work leveraged NIH-supported ENCODE resources and is presented as basic research that will require functional and clinical validation before translation.