Gregory J. Hannon：小RNAs在基因组防御的保守地位
Conserved roles of small RNAs in genome defense
Gregory J. Hannon
（Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, HHMI, USA）
The diversity of functions for small RNAs has been expanding consistently since their discovery some 7 years ago. Recently, we have focused on the roles of small RNAs in the germline of both mammals and invertebrates.
Through studies of a clade of Argonaute proteins, which shows largely gonad-restricted expression patterns, we identified a class of small RNAs with conserved roles in transposon suppression. These piRNAs form the basis of an elegant adaptive immune system that silences transposons at post-transcriptional level, and also either directly or indirectly at the transcriptional level in some cases. More recently, studies in the female germline of mammals have revealed yet another class of small RNAs, which appear to be endogenously generated siRNAs. These small RNAs, which are often generated either from pseudogenes or gene-pseudogene interactions have demonstrable roles in regulating gene expression. Thus, endogenous siRNA systems that exist in other animals appear also to extend to mammals.
Moreover, the existence of small RNAs, with near perfect complementarities to their regulatory targets, might provide at least one explanation for the conservation of Argonaute-mediated catalysis in mammals.
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