Molecular cloning and identification of naturally occurring human antisense angiopoietin-1: Gna-1

One novel cDNA fragment was obtained from vascular endothelial cells by differential display reverse transcription PCR technique. By using this fragment as probe, we screened the human artery cDNA library and obtained one cDNA clone which is 2198 bp in length. After sequencing and homology researching, we found that the clone contained a region of 851 bp in length complementary to that of human angiopoietin-1 cDNA, encoding the partial fibrinogen-like domain and 3’ non-translational region. It was inferred that this clone was a naturally occurring antisense RNA of human angiopoietin-1, designated as Gna-1. Gna-1 does not encode protein. The transcription of Gna-1 in human umbilical vein endothelial cells and ECV304 cells was confirmed by RT-PCR method. Gna-1 may be involved in regulating the function of angiopoietin-1, and play a significant role in angiogenesis.