Journal
NATURE STRUCTURAL & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
Volume 14, Issue 1, Pages 23-29Publisher
NATURE RESEARCH
DOI: 10.1038/nsmb1182
Keywords
-
Funding
- NCRR NIH HHS [RR 20004] Funding Source: Medline
- NIGMS NIH HHS [R01 GM080563-01A1, R01 GM080563] Funding Source: Medline
- NATIONAL CENTER FOR RESEARCH RESOURCES [R01RR020004] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF GENERAL MEDICAL SCIENCES [R01GM080563] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
Ask authors/readers for more resources
MicroRNAs ( miRNAs) regulate the expression of a large number of protein-coding genes. Their primary transcripts (pri-miRNAs) have to undergo multiple processing steps to reach the functional form. Little is known about how the processing of miRNAs is modulated. Here we show that the RNA-binding protein DiGeorge critical region-8 (DGCR8), which is essential for the first processing step, is a heme-binding protein. The association with heme promotes dimerization of DGCR8. The heme-bound DGCR8 dimer seems to trimerize upon binding pri-miRNAs and is active in triggering pri-miRNA cleavage, whereas the heme-free monomer is much less active. A heme-binding region of DGCR8 inhibits the pri-miRNA-processing activity of the monomer. This putative autoinhibition is overcome by heme. Our finding that heme is involved in pri-miRNA processing suggests that the gene-regulation network of miRNAs and signal-transduction pathways involving heme might be connected.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available