Cherie Saffold
University of Tennessee
Heather Pua lab
YRNAs are small, non-coding RNAs that have been implicated in cellular processes such as DNA replication, transcription, and RNA quality control. Additionally, they can be endogenously cleaved into fragments (YsRNAs) upon apoptosis and inflammation induction. Recent literature has identified intracellular and extracellular YRNAs/YsRNAs as biomarkers for cancer and various inflammatory diseases, but their function in these contexts is poorly characterized. Previous work for our lab has shown that hematopoetic dervied exRNA and extracellular vesicles (EVs) are increased in mice upon allergen challenge. Therefore, we want to determine if extracellular YRNAs and YsRNAs are a mode of communication between immune cells in the context of allergic airway inflammation.