STUDY QUESTION Does Let-7a have a functional role in modulating dicer expression to activate dormant mouse blastocysts for implantation? SUMMARY ANSWER Let-7a post-transcriptionally regulates dicer expression altering microRNA expression to affect the implantation competency of the activated blastocysts. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY The Let-7a microRNA is up-regulated during blastocyst dormancy an...

Dicer is an RNase III enzyme with two catalytic subunits, which catalyzes the cleavage of double-stranded RNA to small interfering RNAs and micro-RNAs, which are mainly involved in invasive nucleic acid defense and endogenous genes regulation. Dicer is abundantly expressed in embryos, indicating the importance of the protein in early embryonic development. In addition, Dicer is thought to be in...

Objective—Regulation of vascular smooth muscle (VSM) proliferation and contractile differentiation is an important factor in vascular development and subsequent cardiovascular diseases. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) have been shown to regulate fundamental cellular processes in a number of cell types, but the integrated role of miRNAs in VSM in blood vessels is unknown. Here, we investigated the ...

BACKGROUND The RNase III endonuclease Dicer is an important regulator of gene expression that processes microRNAs (miRNAs) and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). The best-characterized function of miRNAs is gene repression at the post-transcriptional level through the pairing with mRNAs of protein-encoding genes. Small RNAs can also act at the transcriptional level by controlling the epigenetic s...

It has been shown that imprecise cleavage of a primary or precursor RNA by Drosha or Dicer, respectively, may yield a group of microRNA (miRNA) variants designated as "isomiR". Variations in the relative abundance of isoforms for a given miRNA among different species and different cell types beg the question whether these isomiRs might regulate target genes differentially. We compared the capac...

Micro-RNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression, mainly at mRNA post-transcriptional level. Functional maturation of most miRNAs requires processing of the primary transcript by Dicer, an RNaseIII-type enzyme. To date, the importance of miRNA function for normal organogenesis has been demonstrated in several mouse models of tissue-specific Dicer inactivation. However...

Dicer, a key component of the microRNA processing machinery, has been reported to exert discrepant prognostic values and biological roles in different types of cancers. Here, we investigated the function and prognostic value of Dicer in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). Using the retrospective ccRCC patients' cohorts with tissue microarray (TMA), we demonstrated that Dicer expression was...

Dicer is a central enzyme in microRNA (miRNA) processing. We identified a Dicer-independent miRNA biogenesis pathway that uses Argonaute2 (Ago2) slicer catalytic activity. In contrast to other miRNAs, miR-451 levels were refractory to dicer loss of function but were reduced in MZago2 (maternal-zygotic) mutants. We found that pre-miR-451 processing requires Ago2 catalytic activity in vivo. MZago...

Little is known about whether components of the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) mediate the biogenesis of RNAs other than miRNA. Here, we show that depletion of key proteins of the RISC pathway by antisense oligonucleotides significantly impairs pre-rRNA processing in human cells. In cells depleted of Drosha or Dicer, different precursors to 5.8S rRNA strongly accumulated, without affectin...

Dicer has been well studied in cancer; however, deciphering its exact function in tumorigenesis continues to be a challenge. While partial suppression or truncation of Dicer promotes tumorigenesis, its complete deletion inhibits tumor growth. Here, we discuss this Dicer cancer conundrum in the context of its recently discovered role in the DNA damage response.