Yohei Kirino
Thomas Jefferson University, PA·Biochemistry
Cells make many short RNA molecules that are never turned into protein yet help control health and disease. Most research has focused on well-known types such as microRNAs.
- Fields
Biochemistry
Microbiology & Immunology
Genetics
- Topics
small non-coding RNA
sncRNA
tRNA halves
- Grants
- 3 known grants, through Dec 2029
What they work on
- Determine how RNase Kappa, a newly found enzyme that makes cyclic phosphate-containing RNAs, and two cP-RNA-stabilizing proteins control cP-RNA levels, using cP-RNA-seq.
- Test the roles of cP-RNAs made or stabilized by these factors in piRNA production, messenger RNA stability, and immune receptor activation during immune responses.
- Test whether DExD/H-box RNA helicases unwind cut tRNAs to release 5′-tRNA halves in human macrophages, using biochemical, sequencing and functional approaches.
- Identify how a cargo-selecting RNA-binding protein picks 5′-tRNA halves for export in extracellular vesicles, enabling them to activate TLR7, an RNA-sensing immune receptor, in recipient macrophages.
- Profile tRNA halves and ribosomal RNA fragments that rise in lipopolysaccharide-induced acute lung injury models in human macrophages and mice, using cP-RNA-seq.
- Test whether these tRNA halves and rRNA fragments drive cytokine production through endosomal Toll-like receptors and promote immune cell migration, using macrophages and mouse lung slices.
More about the research
A large group remains hidden, though. Many short RNAs end in a chemical cap called a 2′,3′-cyclic phosphate (cP). Standard RNA sequencing cannot attach its adaptors to this cap, so these RNAs go uncounted. The most abundant examples are 5′-tRNA halves, made when the enzyme angiogenin cuts transfer RNAs (tRNAs) in half. The lab developed cP-RNA-seq, a sequencing method that captures these cP-containing RNAs (cP-RNAs). It has shown that they are made through regulated pathways rather than random breakdown, that they form a large share of short RNAs in cells, tissues and extracellular vesicles (EVs), and that their levels shift with hormone signaling, aging, oxidative stress and infection. Its projects ask how these RNAs are made, how they act, and how they drive immune responses and inflammation.
Why it matters
Acute lung injury is often fatal and has no effective therapy. Identifying RNA fragments that fuel lung inflammation and cytokine overproduction could point to new biomarkers and treatment targets. More broadly, mapping how cP-RNAs are made and exported from immune cells could suggest diagnostic markers and therapeutic entry points for infection and inflammatory disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Karthik Hullahalli
Loyola University Chicago, IL·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Define how broadly nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs, approved antiviral drugs) reduce harmful inflammation across diverse bacterial infection settings in mice, beyond E. coli bloodstream infection.
Samithamby Jeyaseelan
Louisiana State University, LA·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how the antioxidant regulator Nrf2 affects survival, bacterial clearance and neutrophil accumulation and function during carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) pneumonia in mice.
David Durgan
Baylor College of Medicine, TX·Physiology
Identify which gut bacteria produce extracellular vesicles that raise blood pressure, using a dilution scheme to simplify bacterial communities, and test the roles of vesicle flagellin and lipopolysaccharide.
The school
Thomas Jefferson University: 12 labs on PI Pages, $271M a year on research, 33 research doctorates a year.
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