PRDE-1 is a nuclear factor essential for the biogenesis of Ruby motif-dependent piRNAs in C. elegans
- Eva-Maria Weick1,3,
- Peter Sarkies1,3,
- Nicola Silva2,
- Ron A. Chen1,
- Sylviane M.M. Moss1,
- Amy C. Cording1,
- Julie Ahringer1,
- Enrique Martinez-Perez2 and
- Eric A. Miska1,4
- 1Wellcome Trust Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1QN, United Kingdom;
- 2MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, London W12 0NN, United Kingdom
Abstract
Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNA) are small regulatory RNAs with essential roles in maintaining genome integrity in animals and protists. Most Caenorhabditis elegans piRNAs are transcribed from two genomic clusters that likely contain thousands of individual transcription units; however, their biogenesis is not understood. Here we identify and characterize prde-1 (piRNA silencing-defective) as the first essential C. elegans piRNA biogenesis gene. Analysis of prde-1 provides the first direct evidence that piRNA precursors are 28- to 29-nucleotide (nt) RNAs initiating 2 nt upstream of mature piRNAs. PRDE-1 is a nuclear germline-expressed protein that localizes to chromosome IV. PRDE-1 is required specifically for the production of piRNA precursors from genomic loci containing an 8-nt upstream motif, the Ruby motif. The expression of a second class of motif-independent piRNAs is unaffected in prde-1 mutants. We exploited this finding to determine the targets of the motif-independent class of piRNAs. Together, our data provide new insights into both the biogenesis and function of piRNAs in gene regulation.
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Footnotes
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↵3 These authors contributed equally to this work.
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↵4 Corresponding author
E-mail eric.miska{at}gurdon.cam.ac.uk
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Supplemental material is available for this article.
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Article is online at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.238105.114.
Freely available online through the Genes & Development Open Access option.
- Received January 21, 2014.
- Accepted February 27, 2014.
This article, published in Genes & Development, is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution 4.0 International), as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
