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Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) in animals: The story so far
Fazli Wahid1, Taous Khan2, Kyung-hee
Hwang1 and You Young Kim1*
1School
of life Sciences and Biotechnology, College of Natural
sciences, Kyungpook National University, 1370 Sangeok-dong,
Buk-ku, Taegu 702-701, Korea.
2Department
of Pharmacy, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology,
Abbottabad, Pakistan.
*Corresponding author. E-mail:
yykim@knu.ac.kr Tel.:
+82-53-950-6354.
Fax:
+82-53-943-2762.
Accepted
23 June, 2009 |
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Piwi-interacting
RNAs (piRNAs) are small RNA molecules of between 24 to 31
nucleotides (nts) sequence and interact with Piwi subfamily
proteins. These piRNAs play important regulatory roles in
germline stem cell maintenance, epigenetic
regulation, and transposition. Although the biogenesis
pathways of piRNAs are not well understood but recent
scientific advances have revealed some important aspects of
their synthesis. Studies on regulatory mechanism of piRNAs
are in their early stages. Yet, the current findings suggest
that piRNA based regulation has direct implications on
germline development and transposon silencing through
heterochromatin formation or RNA destabilization. This
review summarizes the knowledge about all aspects of piRNAs
since its discovery.
Key
words:
Transposition, piRNA, RNA biology, germline, small RNAs,
PIWI. |
