Dicer is required for maintaining adult pancreas.
Dicer1, an essential component of RNA interference and the microRNA pathway, has many important roles in the morphogenesis of developing tissues. Dicer1 null mice have been reported to die at E7.5; therefore it is impossible to study its function in adult tissues. We previously reported that Dicer1-hypomorphic mice, whose Dicer1 expression was reduced to 20% in all tissues, were unexpectedly viable. Here we analyzed these mice to ascertain whether the down-regulation of Dicer1 expression has any influence on adult tissues. Interestingly, all tissues of adult (8-10 week old) Dicer1-hypomorphic mice were histologically normal except for the pancreas, whose development was normal at the fetal and neonatal stages; however, morphologic abnormalities in Dicer1-hypomorphic mice were detected after 4 weeks of age. This suggested that Dicer1 is important for maintaining the adult pancreas.
Morita
Sumiyo
S
Laboratory of Genome Science, Biosignal Genome Resource Center, Institute for Molecular and Cellular Regulation, Gunma University, Showa-machi Maebashi, Japan.
Hara
Akemi
A
Kojima
Itaru
I
Horii
Takuro
T
Kimura
Mika
M
Kitamura
Tadahiro
T
Ochiya
Takahiro
T
Nakanishi
Katsumi
K
Matoba
Ryo
R
Matsubara
Kenichi
K
Hatada
Izuho
I
D000367:Age Factors; D000818:Animals; D053487:DEAD-box RNA Helicases / Q000172:deficiency / Q000502:physiology*; D004722:Endoribonucleases / Q000172:deficiency / Q000502:physiology*; D009024:Morphogenesis; D010179:Pancreas / Q000254:growth & development*; D043244:Ribonuclease III; D015996:Survival Rate
D004722:Endoribonucleases; C509781:Dicer1 protein, mouse; D043244:Ribonuclease III; D053487:DEAD-box RNA Helicases