A complex small RNA repertoire is generated by a plant/fungal-like machinery and effected by a metazoan-like Argonaute in the single-cell human parasite Toxoplasma gondii.

ABSTRACT: In RNA silencing, small RNAs produced by the RNase-III Dicer guide Argonaute-like proteins as part of RNA-induced silencing complexes (RISC) to regulate gene expression transcriptionally or post-transcriptionally. Here, we have characterized the RNA silencing machinery and exhaustive small RNAome of Toxoplasma gondii, member of the Apicomplexa, a phylum of animal- and human-infecting parasites that cause extensive health and economic damages to human populations worldwide. Remarkably, the small RNA-generating machinery of Toxoplasma is phylogenetically and functionally related to that of plants and fungi, and accounts for an exceptionally diverse array of small RNAs. This array includes conspicuous populations of repeat-associated small interfering RNA (siRNA), which, as in plants, likely

SUBMITTER: Braun L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2877743 | biostudies-literature | 2010 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature