| Citation | Correa RL, Steiner FA, Berezikov E, Ketting RF. MicroRNA-directed siRNA biogenesis in Caenorhabditis elegans. PLoS Genet, 2010. |
| PubMed ID | 20386745 |
| Short Description | MicroRNA-directed siRNA biogenesis in Caenorhabditis elegans. GEO Record: GSE20558 Platform: GPL8209 Download gene-centric, log2 transformed data: WBPaper00036130.ce.mr.csv |
| # of Conditions | 6 |
Full Description
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RNA interference (RNAi) is a post-transcriptional silencing process, triggered by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), leading to the destabilization of homologous mRNAs. A distinction has been made between endogenous RNAi-related pathways and the exogenous RNAi pathway, the latter being essential for the experimental use of RNAi. Previous studies have shown that, in Caenorhabditis elegans, a complex containing the enzymes Dicer and the Argonaute RDE-1 process dsRNA. Dicer is responsible for cleaving dsRNA into short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) while RDE-1 acts as the siRNA acceptor. RDE-1 then guides a multi-protein complex to homologous targets to trigger mRNA destabilization. However, endogenous role(s) for RDE-1, if any, have remained unexplored. We here show that RDE-1 functions as a scavenger protein, taking up small RNA molecules from many different sources, including the microRNA (miRNA) pathway. This is in striking contrast to Argonaute proteins functioning directly in the miRNA pathway, ALG-1 and ALG-2: these proteins exclusively bind miRNAs. While playing no significant role in the biogenesis of the main pool of miRNAs, RDE-1 binds endogenous miRNAs and triggers RdRP activity on at least one perfectly matching, endogenous miRNA target. The resulting secondary siRNAs are taken up by a set of Argonaute proteins known to act as siRNA acceptors in exogenous RNAi, resulting in strong mRNA destabilization. Our results show that RDE-1 in an endogenous setting is actively screening the transcriptome using many different small RNAs, including miRNAs, as a guide, with implications for the evolution of transcripts with a potential to be recognized by Dicer. Experimental Details: WBPaper00036130:mir-243_vs_N2_Rep1 WBPaper00036130:N2_vs_mir-243_Rep1 WBPaper00036130:mir-243_vs_N2_Rep2 WBPaper00036130:N2_vs_mir-243_Rep2 WBPaper00036130:mir-243_vs_N2_Rep3 WBPaper00036130:N2_vs_mir-243_Rep3. |
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