Novel nuclear functions of Arabidopsis ARGONAUTE1: beyond RNA interference

First author: Mateusz Bajczyk; Affiliations: Adam Mickiewicz University (波兹南密茨凯维奇大学): Poznan, Poland

Corresponding author: Jakub Dolata

Argonaute (AGO) proteins, key factors in the RNA interference (RNAi) pathway, are involved in the regulation of gene expression at the transcriptional, posttranscriptional and translational levels and play roles in genome integrity maintenance (Hutvagner and Simard, 2008; Meister, 2013; Kalantari et al., 2016; Carbonell, 2017; Ma et al., 2017). AGO proteins, found in all eukaryotes (excluding Saccharomyces cerevisiae) as well as in bacteria and archaea (Drinnenberg et al., 2009; Meister, 2013; Swarts et al., 2014), are classified into three paralogous groups: (1) AGO-like proteins, which account for most AGO proteins and are similar to Arabidopsis thalianaAGO1; (2) PIWI-like proteins, homologous to Drosophila melanogasterPIWI and exclusively expressed in animal germ cells; and (3) AGOs expressed in only Caenorhabditis elegans(Hutvagner and Simard, 2008; Zhang et al., 2015; Ma et al., 2017). The number of genes encoding AGO proteins varies among species, ranging from one in Schizosaccharomyces pombeto 27 in C. elegans(Carmell et al., 2002). All AGO proteins are evolutionarily conserved in structure and function (Hock and Meister, 2008), which emphasizes their importance in cellular metabolism and development.

AGO蛋白是RNA干扰通路中的关键因子，能够从转录、转录后及翻译水平参与基因表达的调控，并在基因组的完整性维持方面发挥着重要作用。除了酿酒酵母，AGO蛋白在所有的真核生物中均存在，同时在细菌和古细菌也有。通常AGO蛋白可以分为三大类：第一类是类AGO蛋白，与拟南芥AGO1相似，占主要部分；第二类是类PIWI蛋白，与黑腹果蝇PIWI同源，特异在动物的生殖细胞中表达；第三类是仅在秀丽隐杆线虫中表达的AGO蛋白。编码AGO蛋白的基因在不同物种中差异很大，从粟酒裂殖酵母中的1个AGO蛋白到秀丽隐杆线虫的27个AGO蛋白。所有的AGO蛋白在结构和功能上具有演化上的保守性，可能说明了AGO蛋白在细胞代谢和发育中具有非常重要的作用。

doi: 10.1104/pp.18.01351

Journal: Plant Physiology

First Published: 03 January, 2019