Somatic piRNAs and Transposons are Differentially Expressed Coincident with Skeletal Muscle Atrophy and Programmed Cell Death
Authors
Tsuji, JunkoThomson, Travis
Brown, Christine
Ghosh, Subhanita
Theurkauf, William E.
Weng, Zhiping
Schwartz, Lawrence M.
UMass Chan Affiliations
NeurobiologyProgram in Molecular Medicine
Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology
Document Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2021-12-22Keywords
Manduca sextaRNA interference
development
ping-pong amplification
small RNAs
transposon
Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology
Bioinformatics
Cell Biology
Computational Biology
Developmental Biology
Genetics and Genomics
Systems Biology
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are small single-stranded RNAs that can repress transposon expression via epigenetic silencing and transcript degradation. They have been identified predominantly in the ovary and testis, where they serve essential roles in transposon silencing in order to protect the integrity of the genome in the germline. The potential expression of piRNAs in somatic cells has been controversial. In the present study we demonstrate the expression of piRNAs derived from both genic and transposon RNAs in the intersegmental muscles (ISMs) from the tobacco hawkmoth Manduca sexta. These piRNAs are abundantly expressed, approximately 27 nt long, map antisense to transposons, are oxidation resistant, exhibit a 5' uridine bias, and amplify via the canonical ping-pong pathway. An RNA-seq analysis demonstrated that 19 piRNA pathway genes are expressed in the ISMs and are developmentally regulated. The abundance of piRNAs does not change when the muscles initiate developmentally-regulated atrophy, but are repressed coincident with the commitment of the muscles undergo programmed cell death at the end of metamorphosis. This change in piRNA expression is correlated with the repression of several retrotransposons and the induction of specific DNA transposons. The developmentally-regulated changes in the expression of piRNAs, piRNA pathway genes, and transposons are all regulated by 20-hydroxyecdysone, the steroid hormone that controls the timing of ISM death. Taken together, these data provide compelling evidence for the existence of piRNA in somatic tissues and suggest that they may play roles in developmental processes such as programmed cell death.Source
Tsuji J, Thomson T, Brown C, Ghosh S, Theurkauf WE, Weng Z, Schwartz LM. Somatic piRNAs and Transposons are Differentially Expressed Coincident with Skeletal Muscle Atrophy and Programmed Cell Death. Front Genet. 2021 Dec 22;12:775369. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2021.775369. PMID: 35003216; PMCID: PMC8730325. Link to article on publisher's site
DOI
10.3389/fgene.2021.775369Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/25962PubMed ID
35003216Related Resources
Rights
Copyright © 2021 Tsuji, Thomson, Brown, Ghosh, Theurkauf, Weng and Schwartz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.Distribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.3389/fgene.2021.775369
Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright © 2021 Tsuji, Thomson, Brown, Ghosh, Theurkauf, Weng and Schwartz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
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