Dissecting the targeting rules of 5' tRNA halves

Fragments of mature tRNAs have long been considered as mere degradation products without physiological function. However, recent reports show that tRNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs) play prominent roles in diverse cellular processes across a wide spectrum of species. As it is the case for other classes of small RNAs, tsRNAs were found to affect gene expression in different contexts, but the mechanisms behind these effects appear more diverse, more complex and are generally less well understood. Here, we modulated the regulation capacity of selected 5' tRNA halves (tRH) in human cells by transfecting synthetic tRH mimics (“overexpression”) or antisense-RNAs (“inhibition”) and identified differentially expressed transcripts based on RNAseq. We then used a novel k-mer mapping approach to dissect the underlying targeting rules.