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Small RNAs

Sorting the strands

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 11, pages 6–7 (2010)Cite this article

Okamura et al., Czech et al. and Ghildiyal et al. found that, in contrast to miRNAs, miRNA*s are commonly modified by 2′-O-methylation at their 3′ ends. Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) that bind to AGO2 to mediate silencing are also modified at their 3′ termini. The authors showed that unlike their partner miRNA strands, which are preferentially incorporated into AGO1, miRNA*s strongly associate with AGO2.

Are siRNA factors required for the accumulation and loading of miRNA*s into AGO? Okamura et al. and Czech et al. used RNAi to knock down canonical miRNA and siRNA factors in S2 cells, and found that miRNA*s were depleted from AGO2 after knockdown of the miRNA factor Dicer-1 (Dcr-1), as well as after knockdown of the siRNA factor Dcr-2 and its partner R2D2. Similarly, Ghildiyal et al. found that Dcr-2 and R2D2 were required in vivo in adult flies to load miRNA* into AGO2. This suggested that the accumulation and AGO-loading of miRNA*s is dependent on a unique combination of canonical miRNA and siRNA factors.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPERS

  1. Okamura, K., Liu, N. & Lai, E. C. Distinct mechanisms for microRNA strand selection by Drosophila Argonautes. Mol. Cell 36, 431–444 (2009)

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  2. Czech, B., Zhou, R., Erlich, Y., Brennecke, J. Binari, R. Hierarchical rules for Argonaute loading in Drosophila. Mol. Cell 36, 445–456 (2009)

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Ghildiyal, M., Xu, J., Seitz, H., Weng, Z. & Zamore, P. D. Sorting of Drosophila small silencing RNAs partitions microRNA* strands into the RNA interference pathway. RNA 16 Nov 2009 (doi:10.1261/rna.1972910)

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FURTHER READING

  1. Ghildiyal, M. & Zamore, P. D. Small silencing RNAs: an expanding universe. Nature Rev. Genet. 10, 94–108 (2009)

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

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Authors
  1. Meera Swami
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Swami, M. Sorting the strands. Nat Rev Genet 11, 6–7 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2721

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