title: Dicer is required for maintaining adult pancreas.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Genome Science, Biosignal Genome Resource Center, Institute for Molecular and Cellular Regulation, Gunma University, Showa-machi Maebashi, Japan.
authors.forename: Sumiyo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Morita
authors.forename: Akemi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hara
authors.forename: Itaru
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kojima
authors.forename: Takuro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Horii
authors.forename: Mika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kimura
authors.forename: Tadahiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kitamura
authors.forename: Takahiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ochiya
authors.forename: Katsumi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nakanishi
authors.forename: Ryo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Matoba
authors.forename: Kenichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Matsubara
authors.forename: Izuho
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hatada
mesh_terms: 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
chemical_list: D004722:Endoribonucleases; C509781:Dicer1 protein, mouse; D043244:Ribonuclease III; D053487:DEAD-box RNA Helicases