Long non-coding RNA SOX2OT: expression signature, splicing patterns, and emerging roles in pluripotency and tumorigenesis

Abstract

SOX2 overlapping transcript (SOX2OT) is a long non-coding RNA which harbors one of the major regulators of pluripotency, SOX2 gene, in its intronic region. SOX2OT gene is mapped to human chromosome 3q26.3 (Chr3q26.3) locus and is extended in a high conserved region of over 700 kb. Little is known about the exact role of SOX2OT; however, recent studies have demonstrated a positive role for it in transcription regulation of SOX2 gene. Similar to SOX2, SOX2OT is highly expressed in embryonic stem cells and down-regulated upon the induction of differentiation. SOX2OT is dynamically regulated during the embryogenesis of vertebrates, and delimited to the brain in adult mice and human. Recently, the disregulation of SOX2OT expression and its concomitant expression with SOX2 have become highlighted in some somatic cancers including esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, lung squamous cell carcinoma, and breast cancer. Interestingly, SOX2OT is differentially spliced into multiple mRNA-like transcripts in stem and cancer cells. In this review, we are describing the structural and functional features of SOX2OT, with an emphasis on its expression signature, its splicing patterns and its critical function in the regulation of SOX2 expression during development and tumorigenesis.

Insights into long noncoding RNAs of naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber) and their potential association with cancer resistance

“…However, five human lncRNAs which were previously reported to be cancer-related lncRNAs displayed high sequence conservation with NMR lncRNAs, especially the human lncRNA ENST00000493116 (also known as SOX2 overlapping transcript, SOX2OT ). SOX2OT is a lncRNA that harbors in the intronic region of SOX2 gene which is one of the major regulators of pluripotency [34]. In human cancers, SOX2OT is co-upregulated with SOX2 and OCT4 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma [35] and was also suggested to play key roles in the induction and/or maintenance of SOX2 expression in breast cancer [36].…”

Long Noncoding RNA-Sox2OT Knockdown Alleviates Diabetes Mellitus-Induced Retinal Ganglion Cell (RGC) injury

“…Human SOX2OT gene has a high nucleotide identity with its ortholog in mouse and Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10571-016-0380-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. other vertebrates, demonstrating its high degree of evolutionary conservation (Shahryari et al 2015). SOX2OT is dynamically regulated during chicken and zebrafish embryogenesis, consistently associated with central nervous system structures, including not only fish embryo eyes, but also mesoderm tissues (Amaral et al 2009;Mercer et al 2008a).…”

SOX2OT variant 7 contributes to the synergistic interaction between EGCG and Doxorubicin to kill osteosarcoma via autophagy and stemness inhibition

“…These variants show diverse expression profiles in different cell or tissue types [12]. It is worth mentioning that the SOX2OT harbors pluripotency regulator SOX2 and could positively regulate SOX2 expression [13,14]. But so far, the expression and function of lncRNA SOX2OT variants in osteosarcoma is still unclear.…”