Talk abstracts
Talk on Saturday 03:50-04:10pm submitted by Wen Tang
Non-canonical Function of the piRNA Pathway in C. elegans
Wen Tang (The Department of Biological Chemistry and Pharmacology, The Ohio State University), Craig Mello (RNA Therapeutics Institute, University of Massachusetts Medical School)
Abstract:
piRNAs are expressed in the germline and are required for fertility. The best-established function of piRNAs is to defend genome against transposons. It remains unclear whether these piRNAs have additional functions beyond genome defense, and whether they impact animal development outside of the germline.
we identified a single piRNA derived from the X-chromosome (21ux-1). It plays an important role in dosage compensation and sex determination in the nematode C. elegans. 21ux-1 targets the transcript of xol-1, a pivotal regulator of sexual development and dosage compensation. Mutations of 21ux-1 sensitize hermaphrodite embryos to dosage compensation and sexual transformation defects. We show 21ux-1 functions in preserving the gender naiveté of embryos by preventing maternal transmission of xol-1 mRNA and protein from the mother to embryos. X-chromosome derived non-coding RNAs such as Xist are associated with dosage compensation. Here we describe the first example of a nematode X-derived non-coding RNA that regulate such process through a novel maternal repressive mechanism. Our findings suggest that Piwi pathways have conserved functions linked to these and potentially many other critical gene regulatory events.
Keywords: small RNAs, Gene regulation