Abstract

Until recently, only nematodes among animals had a well-defined endogenous small interfering RNA (endo-siRNA) pathway. This has changed dramatically with the recent discovery of diverse intramolecular and intermolecular substrates that generate endo-siRNAs in Drosophila melanogaster and mice. These findings suggest broad and possibly conserved roles for endogenous RNA interference in regulating host-gene expression and transposable element transcripts. They also raise many questions regarding the biogenesis and function of small regulatory RNAs in animals.

Author affiliations

1. Katsutomo Okamura and Eric C. Lai are at the Sloan-Kettering Institute, Department of Developmental Biology, 521 Rockefeller Research Laboratories, 1275 York Avenue, BOX 252, New York, New York 10065, USA.

Correspondence to: Eric C. Lai¹ Email: laie@mskcc.org

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