Functional Characterization of Drosophila microRNAs by a Novel in Vivo Library |
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Authors: | Claus Schertel Tobias Rutishauser Klaus F?rstemann Konrad Basler |
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Affiliation: | *Institute of Molecular Life Sciences, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland;†Genecenter and Department of Biochemistry, Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich, Germany |
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Abstract: | Animal microRNAs (miRNA) are implicated in the control of nearly all cellular functions. Due to high sequence redundancy within the miRNA gene pool, loss of most of these 21- to 24-bp long RNAs individually does not cause a phenotype. Thus, only very few miRNAs have been associated with clear functional roles. We constructed a transgenic UAS-miRNA library in Drosophila melanogaster that contains 180 fly miRNAs. This library circumvents the redundancy issues by facilitating the controlled misexpression of individual miRNAs and is a useful tool to complement loss-of-function approaches. Demonstrating the effectiveness of our library, 78 miRNAs induced clear phenotypes. Most of these miRNAs were previously unstudied. Furthermore, we present a simple system to create GFP sensors to monitor miRNA expression and test direct functional interactions in vivo. Finally, we focus on the miR-92 family and identify a direct target gene that is responsible for the specific wing phenotype induced by the misexpression of miR-92 family members. |
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Keywords: | microRNA misexpression library Drosophila in vivo resource |
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