Piwi and piRNAs Act Upstream of an Endogenous siRNA Pathway to Suppress Tc3 Transposon Mobility in the Caenorhabditis elegans Germline

jerry submitted, created time 5 months 3 weeks (www.molecule.org)

The Piwi proteins of the Argonaute superfamily are required for normal germline development in Drosophila, zebrafish, and mice and associate with 24–30 nucleotide RNAs termed piRNAs. They identified a class of 21 nucleotide RNAs, previously named 21U-RNAs, as the piRNAs of C. elegans. Piwi and piRNA expression is restricted to the male and female germline and independent of many proteins in other small-RNA pathways, including DCR-1. They showed that Piwi was specifically required to silence Tc3, but not other Tc/mariner DNA transposons

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) Piwi proteins small interfering RNA (siRNA) germline

The Coming of Age for Piwi Proteins

DanyC submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (www.molecule.org)

"Piwi proteins, a subfamily of Argonaute (Ago) proteins, have recently been shown to bind endogenous small RNAs. However, differences between Ago proteins (which bind microRNAs and small interfering RNAs) and Piwi proteins and Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) suggest novel functions for Piwi proteins. Here, researchers highlight the recent progress in understanding Piwi function and the implications for germline and stem cell development."

Submit comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: microRNAs Piwi proteins heterotrimeric G proteins small interfering RNAs