Dependent Precursors of 24 Nt Sirnas Guiding De Novo DNA Methylation
RESEARCH ARTICLE Identification of Pol IV and RDR2- dependent precursors of 24 nt siRNAs guiding de novo DNA methylation in Arabidopsis Todd Blevins1,2,3†‡, Ram Podicheti4,5†, Vibhor Mishra2,3, Michelle Marasco2,3, Jing Wang2,3, Doug Rusch4, Haixu Tang5, Craig S Pikaard1,2,3* 1Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington, United States; 2Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, United States; 3Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington, United States; 4Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics, Indiana University, Bloomington, United States; 5School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University, Bloomington, United States Abstract In Arabidopsis thaliana, abundant 24 nucleotide small interfering RNAs (24 nt siRNA) *For correspondence: cpikaard@ guide the cytosine methylation and silencing of transposons and a subset of genes. 24 nt siRNA indiana.edu biogenesis requires nuclear RNA polymerase IV (Pol IV), RNA-dependent RNA polymerase 2 (RDR2) †These authors contributed and DICER-like 3 (DCL3). However, siRNA precursors are mostly undefined. We identified Pol IV equally to this work and RDR2-dependent RNAs (P4R2 RNAs) that accumulate in dcl3 mutants and are diced into 24 nt Present address: ‡Institut de RNAs by DCL3 in vitro. P4R2 RNAs are mostly 26-45 nt and initiate with a purine adjacent to a Biologie Mole´culaire des Plantes pyrimidine, characteristics shared by Pol IV transcripts generated in vitro. RDR2 terminal du Centre national de la transferase activity, also demonstrated in vitro, may account for occasional non-templated recherche scientifique, Universite´ nucleotides at P4R2 RNA 3’ termini. The 24 nt siRNAs primarily correspond to the 5’ or 3’ ends of de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, P4R2 RNAs, suggesting a model whereby siRNAs are generated from either end of P4R2 duplexes France by single dicing events.
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