Affiliation:
1. Division of Cancer Stem Cell, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan
Abstract
ABSTRACT
RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP) plays key roles in RNA silencing to generate double-stranded RNAs. In model organisms, such as
Caenorhabditis elegans
and
Neurospora crassa
, two types of small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), primary siRNAs and secondary siRNAs, are expressed; RdRP produces secondary siRNAs
de novo
, without using either Dicer or primers, while primary siRNAs are processed by Dicer. We reported that human telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) has RdRP activity and produces endogenous siRNAs in a Dicer-dependent manner. However,
de novo
synthesis of siRNAs by human TERT has not been elucidated. Here we show that the TERT RdRP generates short RNAs that are complementary to template RNAs and have 5′-triphosphorylated ends, which indicates
de novo
synthesis of the RNAs. In addition, we confirmed short RNA synthesis by TERT in several human carcinoma cell lines and found that TERT protein levels are positively correlated with RdRP activity.
Funder
Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development
Research Grant of the Princess Takamatsu Cancer Research Fund
Takeda Science Foundation
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Subject
Cell Biology,Molecular Biology
Cited by
27 articles.
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