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Small RNA binding is a common strategy to suppress RNA silencing by several viral suppressors
Author(s) -
Lakatos Lóránt,
Csorba Tibor,
Pantaleo Vitantonio,
Chapman Elisabeth J,
Carrington James C,
Liu YuPing,
Dolja Valerian V,
Calvino Lourdes Fernández,
LópezMoya Juan José,
Burgyán József
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the embo journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 7.484
H-Index - 392
eISSN - 1460-2075
pISSN - 0261-4189
DOI - 10.1038/sj.emboj.7601164
Subject(s) - rna induced silencing complex , rna silencing , trans acting sirna , gene silencing , argonaute , biology , rna induced transcriptional silencing , small interfering rna , rna , rna interference , suppressor , piwi interacting rna , microbiology and biotechnology , microrna , genetics , gene
RNA silencing is an evolutionarily conserved system that functions as an antiviral mechanism in higher plants and insects. To counteract RNA silencing, viruses express silencing suppressors that interfere with both siRNA‐ and microRNA‐guided silencing pathways. We used comparative in vitro and in vivo approaches to analyse the molecular mechanism of suppression by three well‐studied silencing suppressors. We found that silencing suppressors p19, p21 and HC‐Pro each inhibit the intermediate step of RNA silencing via binding to siRNAs, although the molecular features required for duplex siRNA binding differ among the three proteins. None of the suppressors affected the activity of preassembled RISC complexes. In contrast, each suppressor uniformly inhibited the siRNA‐initiated RISC assembly pathway by preventing RNA silencing initiator complex formation.