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The small RNA complement of salamander limb regeneration
Author(s) -
Lovci Michael Thomas,
Zhu Wei,
Pao Gerald,
Kuo Dwight,
Smith Jeramiah,
Verma Inder,
Voss S Randal,
Bryant Susan,
Gardiner David,
Harkins Timothy,
Yeo Gene,
Hunter Tony
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.26.1_supplement.952.5
Subject(s) - axolotl , ambystoma mexicanum , biology , regeneration (biology) , rna , zebrafish , transcriptome , microrna , genome , small rna , salamander , vertebrate , microbiology and biotechnology , genetics , computational biology , gene , gene expression , ecology
The exceptional regenerative capacities of the Mexican axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) have made it one of the most prominent organisms in the study of vertebrate regeneration. Here we present results of a genomic survey of small RNAs during limb regeneration using 454 high‐throughput sequencing technology. We mapped small RNAs to an axolotl transcriptome assembly and to a representative library of repetitive DNA sequences sampled from the axolotl genome. Intriguingly, the majority of the axolotl small RNAs (~72%) mapped to repetitive DNA elements while only ~8% corresponded to microRNAs. We identified several microRNAs which appear to be regulated over the regeneration time‐course, several of which are conserved in a zebrafish fin regeneration model. We identified unusual small RNAs that emerge during the regenerative process which could be endogenous siRNAs or piRNAs; several of these were successfully mapped to assembled, protein‐coding transcripts. These observations suggest a small‐RNA mediated mechanism for regeneration that is conserved in vertebrates which employs small RNA classes which have been previously ascribed to pluripotent cell types.