Author:
Sheng Peike,Li Lu,Li Tianqi,Wang Yuzhi,Hiers Nicholas M.,Mejia Jennifer S.,Sanchez Jossie S.,Zhou Lei,Xie Mingyi
Abstract
AbstractMicroRNAs (miRNAs) load onto Argonaute (AGO) proteins and target messenger RNAs (mRNA) to directly suppress gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. However, miRNA degradation can be triggered when there is extended base-pairing between miRNAs and the target RNAs. Such base-pairing can induce confirmational change of AGO and recruitment of ZSWIM8 ubiquitin ligase to mark AGO for proteasomal degradation, while the miRNAs are subsequently degraded. This target RNA-directed miRNA degradation (TDMD) mechanism appears to be an evolutionary conserved mechanism, but recent studies have focused on identifying endogenous TDMD events in the mammalian systems. Here, we performed AGO1-CLASH (crosslinking and sequencing of miRNA-mRNA hybrids) inDrosophilaS2 cells, withDora(ortholog of vertebrate ZSWIM8) knockout (KO) mediated by CRISPR-Cas9 to identify five TDMD triggers (sequences that can induce miRNA degradation). Interestingly, one trigger residing in the 3′ UTR ofAGO1mRNA induces miR-999 degradation. CRISPR-Cas9 KO of theAGO1trigger in S2 cells and inDrosophilaelevates miR-999 abundance, with concurrent repression of the miR-999 targets.AGO1trigger-KO flies respond poorly to hydrogen peroxide-induced stress, demonstrating the physiological importance of a single TDMD event.
Publisher
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory