Transposon Silencing of Small RNAs

Small silencing RNAs

Just fourteen years ago, Victor Ambros and coworkers discovered the first microRNA (miRNA). And just eight years ago, small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), the small silencing RNAs that mediate RNA interference (RNAi), were identified and subsequently shown in animals to be derived from a longer double-stranded RNA trigger and to serve as guides for the destruction of complementary mRNAs. The discov...

Sorting of Drosophila Small Silencing RNAs

In Drosophila, small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), which direct RNA interference through the Argonaute protein Ago2, are produced by a biogenesis pathway distinct from microRNAs (miRNAs), which regulate endogenous mRNA expression as guides for Ago1. Here, we report that siRNAs and miRNAs are sorted into Ago1 and Ago2 by pathways independent from the processes that produce these two classes of smal...

Rotavirus gene silencing by small interfering RNAs.

RNA interference is an evolutionarily conserved double-stranded RNA-triggered mechanism for suppressing gene expression. Rotaviruses, the leading cause of severe diarrhea in young children, are formed by three concentric layers of protein, from which the spike protein VP4 projects. Here, we show that a small interfering RNA corresponding to the VP4 gene efficiently inhibits the synthesis of thi...

Small RNAs: Artificial piRNAs for Transcriptional Silencing

Technologies have been developed in animal germ cells that produce artificial piRNAs from transgenes in piRNA clusters to silence target genes by cleaving their transcripts. A new study provides a simple way to generate artificial piRNAs to direct de novo DNA methylation in mice.

stably silencing of cd81 expression by small interfering rnas targeting 3'-ntr inhibits hcv infection