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Enhanced Northern Blot Detection of Small RNA Species in Drosophila Melanogaster
Published on: August 21, 2014
Small RNA asymmetry in RNAi: function in RISC assembly and gene regulation
1University of Dundee, School of Life Sciences, Division of Gene Regulation and Expression, Dundee DD1 4HN, UK. g.hutvagner@dundee.ac.uk
Abstract:
RNAi is a conserved gene-specific regulatory mechanism, which silences target gene expression transcriptionally and post-transcriptionally. The RNAi machinery converts the sequence specific information of a long double stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) into small 21-22 nt long dsRNAs (siRNAs, miRNAs) which assemble into an effector complex, the RNA induced silencing complex (RISC). RISC assembly is asymmetric; one strand of an siRNA or a miRNA preferentially incorporates into the RNA-protein complex. Here, I review the rules of the asymmetric RISC formation and discuss their possible regulatory function in several steps in RNAi.
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