Analysis of ribosomal intergenic spacer expression in response to heat shock in humans, mice, and chickens.

This study identified the evolutionary conservation of a systemic and reversible form of amyloid aggregation, called amyloid body formation. These structures form in response to environmental stress, and are seeded by long-noncoding RNA derived from the intergenic spacer region of the rDNA cassette in humans. We used RNA sequencing on human, mouse, and chicken derived cells subjected to heat shock treatment to compare expression from the intergenic spacer region, in order to see if the seeding RNA is a conserved element of amyloid body formation.