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Argonaute catalytic activity is required for maternal mRNA clearance in embryos

Piergiuseppe Quarato,Meetali Singh,Eric Cornes,Blaise Li,Loan Bourdon,C. Didier,Germano Cecere

Published 2020 in bioRxiv

ABSTRACT

Abstract Argonaute proteins and their interacting small RNAs play a key role in regulating complementary mRNA targets during animal development. Here, we investigate a novel and essential function of the catalytically active Argonaute protein CSR-1 in maternal mRNA degradation during early embryogenesis in Caenorhabditis elegans. We show that CSR-1 interacts with endogenous small RNAs antisense to hundreds of cleared maternal mRNAs in embryos, and preferentially cleaves mRNAs no longer engaged in translation. The depletion of CSR-1 during maternal to zygotic transition leads to embryonic lethality in a catalytic-dependent manner and impairs the degradations of its embryonic mRNA targets. Given the conservation of Argonaute catalytic activity, we propose that a similar mechanism operate to clear maternal mRNAs during maternal to zygotic transition across species.

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