Open AccessRNA interference and retinoblastoma-related genes are required for repression of endogenous siRNA targets in Caenorhabditis elegans
Author(s) -
Alla Grishok,
Sebastian Hoersch,
Phillip A. Sharp
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.011
H-Index - 771
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.0810589105
Subject(s) - rna interference , biology , small interfering rna , gene silencing , caenorhabditis elegans , chromatin , gene , genetics , dicer , mutant , rna silencing , microbiology and biotechnology , rna
InCaenorhabditis elegans , a vast number of endogenous short RNAs corresponding to thousands of genes have been discovered recently. This finding suggests that these short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) may contribute to regulation of many developmental and other signaling pathways in addition to silencing viruses and transposons. Here, we present a microarray analysis of gene expression in RNA interference (RNAi)-related mutantsrde-4 ,zfp-1 , andalg-1 and the retinoblastoma (Rb) mutantlin-35 . We found that a component of Dicer complex RDE-4 and a chromatin-related zinc finger protein ZFP-1, not implicated in endogenous RNAi, regulate overlapping sets of genes. Notably, genes a) up-regulated in therde-4 andzfp-1 mutants and b) up-regulated in thelin-35 (Rb) mutant, but not the down-regulated genes are highly represented in the set of genes with corresponding endogenous siRNAs (endo-siRNAs). Our study suggests that endogenous siRNAs cooperate with chromatin factors, eitherC. elegans ortholog of acute lymphoblastic leukemia-1 (ALL-1)-fused gene from chromosome 10 (AF10), ZFP-1, or tumor suppressor Rb, to regulate overlapping sets of genes and predicts a large role for RNAi-based chromatin silencing in control of gene expression inC. elegans .