Critical Roles for Dicer in the Female Germline

Overview

Journal Genes Dev

Specialty Molecular Biology

Date 2007 Mar 21

PMID 17369401

Citations 223

Authors

Elizabeth P Murchison

Paula Stein

Zhenyu Xuan

Hua Pan

Michael Q Zhang

Richard M Schultz

Gregory J Hannon

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Dicer is an essential component of RNA interference (RNAi) pathways, which have broad functions in gene regulation and genome organization. Probing the consequences of tissue-restricted Dicer loss in mice indicates a critical role for Dicer during meiosis in the female germline. Mouse oocytes lacking Dicer arrest in meiosis I with multiple disorganized spindles and severe chromosome congression defects. Oogenesis and early development are times of significant post-transcriptional regulation, with controlled mRNA storage, translation, and degradation. Our results suggest that Dicer is essential for turnover of a substantial subset of maternal transcripts that are normally lost during oocyte maturation. Furthermore, we find evidence that transposon-derived sequence elements may contribute to the metabolism of maternal transcripts through a Dicer-dependent pathway. Our studies identify Dicer as central to a regulatory network that controls oocyte gene expression programs and that promotes genomic integrity in a cell type notoriously susceptible to aneuploidy.

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