Isolation and Characterization of a Novel Noncoding RNA from Nickel-Induced Lung Cancer

Noncoding RNAs have drawn significant attention in carcinogenesis. In this study, we identified a novel gene named nickel-related gene1 (NRG1) associated with nickel-induced cancer. By using rapid amplification of cDNA end PCR, we obtained the full length of the cDNA. The sequence was analyzed by using related bioinformatics software and comparative genomics methods. The results showed that NRG1 was located on chromosome 2q12, within intron2 of ADAMTS6, a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs. And, NRG1 had a high level of homology (76 %) to rat LINE1 sequence RL1.3 (long interspersed middle repetitive DNA). What's more, there was no continuous open reading frame present in NRG1 sequence. Taken together, these data demonstrate that NRG1 is a novel noncoding RNA, and we predicted it may be a transposon-like gene. The identification of NRG1 emphasized the potential role of noncoding RNA in nickel carcinogenesis.