title: THE ROLE OF ZINC FINGER PROTEIN IN RNAi INTERFERENCE IN A UNICELLULAR GREEN ALGA CHLAMYDOMONAS REINHARDTII (CHLOROPHYCEAE).
abstract: In our previous study, we generated a strain of 19-P (1030) in which artificial RNA interference (RNAi) was induced by transcribing a hairpin RNA of ~780-bp stem. We utilized this RNAi-induced strain to uncover RNAi-related genes. Random insertional mutagenesis was performed to generate tag-mutants that show a RNAi deficient phenotype. The 92-12C is one such tag-mutant, which bears a 14-kb deletion in chromosome 1. Complementation of 92-12C revealed that a protein gene, including a Cys-Cys-Cys-His-type zinc finger motif and an ankyrin repeat motif, is essential for effective RNAi in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (Dangeard). BLAST analysis revealed that the zinc finger protein is homologous to an mRNA splicing-related protein of other species. Therefore, one of the probable scenarios is that mRNA coding for RNAi-related proteins cannot be properly spliced, which causes RNAi deficiency in the 92-12C tag-mutant.
authors.affiliation: School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Kochi University of Technology (KUT), Tosayamada, Kochi, 782-8502, Japan.
authors.forename: Hidenobu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Uchida
authors.affiliation: School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Kochi University of Technology (KUT), Tosayamada, Kochi, 782-8502, Japan.
authors.forename: Eri
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ikeuchi
authors.affiliation: School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Kochi University of Technology (KUT), Tosayamada, Kochi, 782-8502, Japan.
authors.forename: Tomohito
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yamasaki
authors.affiliation: School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Kochi University of Technology (KUT), Tosayamada, Kochi, 782-8502, Japan.
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ohama
keywords: Chlamydomonas; RNA interference; ankyrin repeat motif; random insertional mutagenesis; zinc finger motif