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.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThree 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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