A Dicer-miR-107 Interaction Regulates Biogenesis of Specific miRNAs Crucial for Neurogenesis

Dicer controls the biogenesis of microRNAs (miRNAs) and is essential for neurogenesis. Recent reports show that the levels and substrate selectivity of DICER result in the preferential biogenesis of specific miRNAs in vitro. However, how dicer expression levels and miRNA biogenesis are regulated in vivo and how this affects neurogenesis is incompletely understood. Here we show that during zebrafish hindbrain development dicer expression levels are controlled by miR-107 to tune the biogenesis of specific miRNAs, such as miR-9, whose levels regulate neurogenesis. Loss of miR-107 function stabilizes dicer levels and miR-9 biogenesis across the ventricular hindbrain zone, resulting in an increase of both proliferating progenitors and postmitotic neurons. miR-9 ectopic accumulation in differentiating neuronal cells recapitulated the excessive neurogenesis phenotype. We propose that miR-107 modulation of dicer levels in differentiating neuronal cells is required to maintain the homeostatic levels of specific miRNAs, whose precise accumulation is essential for neurogenesis.