RNA interference is a powerful mechanism of gene silencing that underlies many aspects of eukaryotic biology. On the molecular level, RNA interference is mediated by a family of ribonucleoprotein complexes called RNA-induced silencing complexes (RISCs), which can be programmed to target virtually any nucleic acid sequence for silencing. The ability of RISC to locate target RNAs has been co-opte...

Two RNA silencing-related phenomena, quelling and meiotic silencing by unpaired DNA (MSUD) have been identified in the fungus Neurospora crassa. Similar to the case with the siRNA and miRNA pathways in Drosophila, different sets of protein components including RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, argonaute and dicer, are used in the quelling and MSUD pathways. Orthologs of the RNA silencing components...