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A microRNA family exerts maternal control on sex determination in C. elegans

Gene expression in early animal embryogenesis is in large part controlled post-transcriptionally. Maternally contributed microRNAs may therefore play important roles in early development. We elucidated a major biological role of the nematode mir-35 family of maternally contributed essential microRNA...

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Autores principales: McJunkin, Katherine, Ambros, Victor
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5358761/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28279983
http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/gad.290155.116
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author McJunkin, Katherine
Ambros, Victor
author_facet McJunkin, Katherine
Ambros, Victor
author_sort McJunkin, Katherine
collection PubMed
description Gene expression in early animal embryogenesis is in large part controlled post-transcriptionally. Maternally contributed microRNAs may therefore play important roles in early development. We elucidated a major biological role of the nematode mir-35 family of maternally contributed essential microRNAs. We show that this microRNA family regulates the sex determination pathway at multiple levels, acting both upstream of and downstream from her-1 to prevent aberrantly activated male developmental programs in hermaphrodite embryos. Both of the predicted target genes that act downstream from the mir-35 family in this process, suppressor-26 (sup-26) and NHL (NCL-1, HT2A, and LIN-41 repeat) domain-containing-2 (nhl-2), encode RNA-binding proteins, thus delineating a previously unknown post-transcriptional regulatory subnetwork within the well-studied sex determination pathway of Caenorhabditis elegans. Repression of nhl-2 by the mir-35 family is required for not only proper sex determination but also viability, showing that a single microRNA target site can be essential. Since sex determination in C. elegans requires zygotic gene expression to read the sex chromosome karyotype, early embryos must remain gender-naïve; our findings show that the mir-35 family microRNAs act in the early embryo to function as a developmental timer that preserves naïveté and prevents premature deleterious developmental decisions.
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spelling pubmed-53587612017-08-15 A microRNA family exerts maternal control on sex determination in C. elegans McJunkin, Katherine Ambros, Victor Genes Dev Research Paper Gene expression in early animal embryogenesis is in large part controlled post-transcriptionally. Maternally contributed microRNAs may therefore play important roles in early development. We elucidated a major biological role of the nematode mir-35 family of maternally contributed essential microRNAs. We show that this microRNA family regulates the sex determination pathway at multiple levels, acting both upstream of and downstream from her-1 to prevent aberrantly activated male developmental programs in hermaphrodite embryos. Both of the predicted target genes that act downstream from the mir-35 family in this process, suppressor-26 (sup-26) and NHL (NCL-1, HT2A, and LIN-41 repeat) domain-containing-2 (nhl-2), encode RNA-binding proteins, thus delineating a previously unknown post-transcriptional regulatory subnetwork within the well-studied sex determination pathway of Caenorhabditis elegans. Repression of nhl-2 by the mir-35 family is required for not only proper sex determination but also viability, showing that a single microRNA target site can be essential. Since sex determination in C. elegans requires zygotic gene expression to read the sex chromosome karyotype, early embryos must remain gender-naïve; our findings show that the mir-35 family microRNAs act in the early embryo to function as a developmental timer that preserves naïveté and prevents premature deleterious developmental decisions. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 2017-02-15 /pmc/articles/PMC5358761/ /pubmed/28279983 http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/gad.290155.116 Text en © 2017 McJunkin and Ambros; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed exclusively by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the first six months after the full-issue publication date (see http://genesdev.cshlp.org/site/misc/terms.xhtml). After six months, it is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International), as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
spellingShingle Research Paper
McJunkin, Katherine
Ambros, Victor
A microRNA family exerts maternal control on sex determination in C. elegans
title A microRNA family exerts maternal control on sex determination in C. elegans
title_full A microRNA family exerts maternal control on sex determination in C. elegans
title_fullStr A microRNA family exerts maternal control on sex determination in C. elegans
title_full_unstemmed A microRNA family exerts maternal control on sex determination in C. elegans
title_short A microRNA family exerts maternal control on sex determination in C. elegans
title_sort microrna family exerts maternal control on sex determination in c. elegans
topic Research Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5358761/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28279983
http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/gad.290155.116
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