Dicer-1 and R3D1-L catalyze microRNA maturation in Drosophila

  1. Feng Jiang1,3,
  2. Xuecheng Ye1,3,
  3. Xiang Liu1,
  4. Lauren Fincher1,
  5. Dennis McKearin2, and
  6. Qinghua Liu1,4
  1. 1Department of Biochemistry, 2Department of Molecular Biology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas 75390, USA

Abstract

In Drosophila melanogaster, Dicer-2/R2D2 and Dicer-1 generate small interfering RNA (siRNA) and microRNA (miRNA), respectively. Here we identify a novel dsRNA-binding protein, which we named R3D1-L, that forms a stable complex with Dicer-1 in vitro and in vivo. While depletion of R3D1-L by RNAi causes accumulation of precursor miRNA (pre-miRNA) in S2 cells, recombinant R3D1-L enhances miRNA production by Dicer-1 in vitro. Furthermore, R3D1 deficiency causes miRNA-generating defect and severe sterility in male and female flies. Therefore, R3D1-L functions in concert with Dicer-1 in miRNA biogenesis and is required for reproductive development in Drosophila.

Keywords

Footnotes

  • Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org.

  • Article published online ahead of print. Article and publication date are at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.1334005.

  • Note added in proof

  • R3D1 has recently been independently identified by two other labs and named Loquacious (Förstemann et al. 2005; Saito et al. 2005).

  • 3 These authors contributed equally to this work.

  • 4 Corresponding author.

    4 E-MAIL qliu{at}biochem.swmed.edu; FAX (214) 648-0320.

    • Accepted May 27, 2005.
    • Received May 17, 2005.
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