查看文章

The Arabidopsis genome encodes four Dicer-like (DCL) proteins, two of which contain putative nuclear localization signals. This suggests one or more nuclear pathways for processing double-stranded (ds) RNA in plants. To study the subcellular location of processing of nuclear-encoded dsRNA involved in transcriptional silencing, we examined short interfering (si) RNA and micro (mi) RNA accumulation in transgenic Arabidopsis expressing nuclear and cytoplasmic variants of P19, a viral protein that suppresses posttranscriptional gene silencing. P19 binds specifically to DCL-generated 21- to 25-nucleotide (nt) dsRNAs with 2-nt 3′ overhangs and reportedly suppresses the accumulation of all size classes of siRNA. Nuclear P19 resulted in a significant reduction of 21- to 22-nt siRNAs and a 21-nt miRNA, but had a lesser effect on 24-nt siRNAs. Cytoplasmic P19 did not decrease the quantity but resulted in a …