RNA-directed transcriptional gene silencing in plants can be inherited independently of the RNA trigger and requires Met1 for maintenance

RNA-directed transcriptional gene silencing in plants can be inherited independently of the RNA trigger and requires Met1 for maintenance

BACKGROUND The association between DNA methylation and gene silencing has long been recognized; however, signals that initiate de novo methylation are largely unknown. In plants, recognition of RNAs that are inducers of posttranscriptional gene silencing (PTGS) can result in sequence-specific DNA methylation, and the aim of this work was to investigate whether heritable epigenetic changes can o...

Promoter-associated RNA is required for RNA-directed transcriptional gene silencing in human cells.

siRNAs targeted to gene promoters can direct epigenetic modifications that result in transcriptional gene silencing in human cells. It is not clear whether the antisense strand of the siRNAs bind directly to DNA or to a sense-stranded RNA transcript corresponding to the known promoter region. We present evidence that an RNA polymerase II expressed mRNA containing an extended 5' untranslated reg...

Diverse small RNA-directed silencing pathways in plants.

Small silencing RNAs of 21- to 24-nucleotide (nt) in length are essential regulatory components expressed in most eukaryotic organisms. These regulatory small RNAs are produced through pathways that involve several evolutionarily conserved protein families, including DICER (DCR) or DICER-LIKE (DCL), ARGONAUTE (AGO), and RNA-DEPENDENT RNA POLYMERASE (RDR). Plants possess multiple functional DCL,...

Induction of RNA-directed DNA methylation and heritable transcriptional gene silencing as a tool to engineer novel traits in plants

Gene silencing through transcriptional repression can be induced by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) that targets a gene promoter. This phenomenon, termed RNA-mediated transcriptional gene silencing (TGS), was first discovered in plants using a transgene that transcribes an inverted repeat of promoter sequence. However, endogenous genes differ from transgenes in the feasibility of TGS induction, by ...

Interrelationship of RNA interference and transcriptional gene silencing in Drosophila.