Benjamin Harrison, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Biomedical Science Department in the College of Osteopathic Medicine, recently published an article, titled “Detection of Differentially Expressed Cleavage Site Intervals Within 3′ Untranslated Regions Using CSI-UTR Reveals Regulated Interaction Motifs,” in Frontiers in Genetics, a journal that publishes peer-reviewed research on genes and genomes relating to all domains of life, from humans to plants to livestock and other model organisms.
The three prime untranslated region (3’UTR) is the structure of a gene that determines the fate of a genetic code.
Harrison and colleagues developed a method that models the length of untranslated regions at the 3′ end of transcripts. This approach allows the study of changes in a genetic code that may or may not occur in a given situation.
Looking at this expression is important for understanding processes at the gene-level that influence cancer, as well as cell proliferation, development and differentiation. It can have broad implications for potential therapeutic developments in numerous biological processes.
