Poster abstracts
Poster number 23 submitted by Hannah Hertz
The Piwi/piRNA pathway promotes fertility by regulating expression of protein-coding genes
Hannah L. Hertz (Department of Biological Chemistry and Pharmacology, The Ohio State University), Ian F. Price (The Ohio State Biochemistry Program, The Ohio State University), Benjamin Pastore (The Ohio State Biochemistry Program, The Ohio State University), Wen Tang (Department of Biological Chemistry and Pharmacology, The Ohio State University)
Abstract:
The PIWI/piRNA pathway plays an essential role in fertility across metazoa. In the nematode Caenorhobitis elegans, PIWI ortholog PRG-1 and its small RNA cofactors (piRNAs) silence transposons and mRNAs via complementary base pairing. Loss of PRG-1 leads to infertility. Our goal is to identify germline transcripts responsible for reduced fertility in the absence of PRG-1/piRNA targeting. To this end, we conducted germline-specific RNAi to systematically knock down PRG-1/piRNA targets in prg-1 mutant animals and assessed their fertility. Although depletion of many PRG-1/piRNA targets did not have an effect, knockdown of some somatic transcripts in the germline may rescue fertility. Altogether, our study suggests a role for the PRG-1/piRNA pathway in maintaining germ-cell identity by repressing somatic transcripts.
Keywords: PIWI-interacting small RNAs, Caenorhabditis elegans