Publications by authors named "Vivek Nilesh Shah"
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) together with Argonaute (AGO) proteins form the core of the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) to regulate gene expression of their target RNAs post-transcriptionally. Argonaute proteins are subjected to intensive regulation via various post-translational modifications that can affect their stability, silencing efficacy and specificity for targeted gene regulation. We report here that in Caenorhabditis elegans, two conserved serine/threonine kinases - casein kinase 1 alpha 1 (CK1A1) and casein kinase 2 (CK2) - regulate a highly conserved phosphorylation cluster of 4 Serine residues (S988:S998) on the miRNA-specific AGO protein ALG-1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArgonaute proteins are at the core of the microRNA-mediated gene silencing pathway essential for animals. In C. elegans, the microRNA-specific Argonautes ALG-1 and ALG-2 regulate multiple processes required for proper animal developmental timing and viability.
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- MicroRNAs form a complex called miRISC with Argonaute proteins to silence mRNA translation by targeting its 3'UTR, but how they are moved to their targets is not well understood.
- Researchers used Caenorhabditis elegans to identify the RabGAP protein tbc-11 as crucial for microRNA pathways, primarily through its interaction with the small GTPase RAB-6.
- Without functional TBC-11, there's an accumulation of inactive Argonaute proteins that fail to bind mRNAs, leading to impaired gene repression, highlighting the significance of intracellular transport in microRNA functionality.
Three recent studies (Dodson and Kennedy, 2019; Lev et al., 2019; Ouyang et al., 2019) reveal that germ granule formation is necessary to protect germline-expressed genes from improper small RNA-mediated silencing.
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