a ribozyme by catalyzing its own hydrolysis and splicing. Genomic organisation SnoRNAs are located diversely in the genome. The majority of vertebrate snoRNA genes are encoded in the introns of genes encoding proteins involved in ribosome synthesis or translation, and are synthesized by RNA polymerase II. SnoRNAs are also shown to be located in intergenic regions, ORFs of protein coding genes, and UTRs. SnoRNAs can also be transcribed from their own promoters by RNA polymerase II or III. Imprinted loci In the human genome, there are at least two examples where C/D box snoRNAs are found in tandem repeats within imprinted loci. These two loci (14q32 on chromosome 14 and 15q11q13 on chromosome 15) have been extensively characterised, and in both regions multiple snoRNAs have been found located within introns in clusters of closely related copies. In 15q11q13, five different snoRNAs have been identified (SNORD64, SNORD107, SNORD108, SNORD109 (two copies), SNORD116 (29 copies) and SNORD115 (48 copies). Loss of the 29 copies of SNORD116 (HBII-85) from this region has been identified as a cause of Prader-Willi syndrome whereas gain of additional copies of SNORD115 has been linked to autism. Region 14q32 contains repeats of two snoRNAs SNORD113 (9 copies) and SNORD114 (31 copies) within the introns of a tissue-specific ncRNA transcript (MEG8). The 14q32 domain has been shown to share common genomic features with the imprinted 15q11-q13 loci and a possible role for tandem repeats of C/D box snoRNAs in the evolution or mechanism of imprinted loci has been suggested. Other functions snoRNAs can function as miRNAs. It has been shown that human ACA45 is a bona fide snoRNA that can be processed into a 21-nucleotides-long mature miRNA by the RNAse III family endoribonuclease dicer. This snoRNA product has previously been identified as mmu-miR-1839 and was shown to be processed independently from the other miRNA-generating endoribonuclease drosha. Bioinformatical analyses have revealed that putatively snoRNA-derived, miRNA-like fragments occur in different organisms. Recently, it has been found that snoRNAs can have functions not related to rRNA. One such function is the regulation of alternative splicing of the trans gene transcript, which is done by the snoRNA HBII-52, which is also known as SNORD115. In November 2012, Schubert et al. revealed that specific RNAs control chromatin compaction and accessibility in Drosophila cells. References External links human snoRNA atlas from small RNA sequencing data plant snoRNA database snoRNAbase: human H/ACA and C/D box snoRNA