GSE11019
Endogenous siRNAs derived from transposons and mRNAs in Drosophila somatic cells
Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) direct RNA interference (RNAi) in eukaryotes. In flies, somatic cells produce siRNAs from exogenous double-stranded RNA as a defense against viral infection. Here, we identify 21-nt long, endogenous siRNAs (endo-siRNAs) corresponding to transposons and heterochromatic sequences in the somatic cells of Drosophila melanogaster. We also detected endo-siRNAs complementary to mRNAs: these siRNAs disproportionately mapped to the complementary regions of overlapping mRNAs predicted to form dsRNA in vivo. Normal accumulation of somatic endo-siRNAs requires the siRNA-generating ribonuclease, Dicer-2, and the RNAi effector protein, Ago2. We propose that endo-siRNAs generated by the fly RNAi pathway silence selfish genetic elements in the soma much as piRNAs do in the germ line. Keywords: Small RNA detection and quantification. Overall design: Small RNAs (18-30 nt) from fly heads (WT, ago2 mutants, dcr-2 homozygous and heterozygous mutants, and WT expressing an inverted repeat directed against exon 3 of the gene "white") and S2 cells (transgenic for a construct expressing siRNAs against white and GFP) were sequenced using a Solexa Genome Analyzer instrument.