RNA silencing mechanisms are highly differentiated in eukaryotes

Abstract

Posterior to the discovery of the double-stranded RNA mediated gene silencing two decades ago, RNA interference or RNA-mediated gene silencing has received unusual intensity of study in the biology-related research fields. RNA silencing represents a large spectrum of gene regulation mechanisms in all kingdoms of eukaryotes. The power and necessity of RNA silencing has been unambiguously appreciated in both animals and plants, although the mechanisms engaged are divergent in some aspects. Interestingly, as comprehensively reviewed by Schumann et al. in this issue, RNA silencing in the simple eukaryotic fungi strikingly differs from those of animals and plants, and among fungal species as well.

References

[1] Amaral P P, Dinger M E, Mercer T R, Mattick J S (2008). The eukaryotic genome as an RNA machine. Science, 319(5871): 1787-1789

[2] Davis C A, Grate L, Spingola M, Ares M Jr (2000). Test of intron predictions reveals novel splice sites, alternatively spliced mRNAs and new introns in meiotically regulated genes of yeast. Nucleic Acids Res, 28(8): 1700-1706

[3] Disney M D, Haidaris C G, Turner D H (2003). Uptake and antifungal activity of oligonucleotides in Candida albicans. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 100(4): 1530-1534

[4] Drinnenberg I A, Weinberg D E, Xie K T, Mower J P, Wolfe K H, Fink G R, Bartel D P (2009). RNAi in budding yeast. Science, 326(5952): 544-550

[5] Eulalio A, Huntzinger E, Izaurralde E (2008). Getting to the root of miRNA-mediated gene silencing. Cell, 132(1): 9-14

[6] Ghildiyal M, Zamore P D (2009). Small silencing RNAs: an expanding universe. Nat Rev Genet, 10(2): 94-108

[7] Kedde M, Strasser M J, Boldajipour B, Oude Vrielink J A, Slanchev K, le Sage C, Nagel R, Voorhoeve P M, van Duijse J, Ørom U A, Lund A H, Perrakis A, Raz E, Agami R (2007). RNA-binding protein Dnd1 inhibits microRNA access to target mRNA. Cell, 131(7): 1273-1286

[8] Nakayashiki H (2005). RNA silencing in fungi: mechanisms and applications. FEBS Lett, 579(26): 5950-5957

[9] Schumann U, Ayliffe M, Kazan K, Wang M B (2010). RNA silencing in fungi. Front Biol, in press

[10] Whittaker R H (1969). New concepts of kingdoms or organisms. Evolutionary relations are better represented by new classifications than by the traditional two kingdoms. Science, 163(863): 150-160

[11] Zhang L, Leibowitz M J, Zhang Y (2009). Antisense oligonucleotides effectively inhibit the co-transcriptional splicing of a Candida group I intron in vitro and in vivo: Implications for antifungal therapeutics. FEBS Lett, 583(4): 734-738

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg