Oncogenic BRAFV600E remodels the melanocyte transcriptome and induces BANCR to regulate melanoma cell migration [Affymetrix]

Most cancer genomics papers to date have focused on aberrations in genomic DNA and protein-coding transcripts. However, around 50% of transcripts have no coding potential and may exist as non-coding RNA. We performed RNA-seq in BRAFv600e melanoma skin cancer and on melanocytes over-expressing oncogenic BRAF to catalog transcriptome remodeling. We discovered that BRAF regulates expression of 1027 protein coding transcripts, 39 annotated lncRNAs and 70 novel transcripts. Many of the novel transcripts are lncRNAs. We used an indepenedent dataset to interrogate our novel transcripts and found that the novel lncRNA BANCR is a BRAF-regulated lncRNA recurrently upregulated in melanoma. Knockdown of BANCR impairs melanoma cell migration. To identify genes regulated by BANCR we perrformed shRNA knockdown experiments using 2 independent shRNA sequences in col829 melanoma cells. RNA was then extracted for microarray analysis.