Molecular Biology Commons^™

Characterization Of Rnai-Defective Mutants -- Mut13-2 And Mut20 -- In Chlamydomonas Reinhardtii, Arit Ghosh

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

RNA interference (RNAi) is a highly conserved and sequence-specific process for regulation of gene expression. At the heart of the RNAi machinery lie 21-24 nt small non-coding RNA molecules which are able to downregulate the expression of cognate sequences, by causing degradation or translational repression of mRNAs. These noncoding RNAs act via the effector RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC), which includes core proteins such as the Argonautes (AGOs). Two Chlamydomonas reinhardtii RNAi-defective mutants, Mut13-2 and Mut20, show deletions of various domains of the Tudor Staphylococcal Nuclease 1 (TSN1) gene. TSN1 has already been recognized as a component of the RNA-induced silencing …