The MID-PIWI module of Piwi proteins specifies nucleotide- and strand-biases of piRNAs

ABSTRACT: Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) guide Piwi Argonautes to suppress transposon activity in animal gonads. Known piRNA populations are extremely complex, with millions of individual sequences present in a single organism. Despite this complexity, specific Piwi proteins incorporate piRNAs with distinct nucleotide- and transposon strand-biases (antisense or sense) of unknown origin. Here we examined the contribution of structural domains in Piwi proteins towards defining these biases. We report the first crystal structure of the MID domain from a Piwi Argonaute and use docking experiments to show its ability to specify recognition of 5M-bM-^@M-2 uridine (1U-bias) of piRNAs. Mutational analyses reveal the importance of 5M-bM-^@M-^Y end-recognition within the MID domain for piRNA biogenesis in viv

ORGANISM(S): Bombyx mori

SUBMITTER: Ramesh Pillai 

PROVIDER: E-GEOD-55451 | biostudies-arrayexpress |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-arrayexpress