Voinnet Olivier
Institut de Biologie Moléculaire des Plantes du CNRS 12, Rue du Général Zimmer, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France.
Trends Plant Sci. 2003 Jul;8(7):307-9. doi: 10.1016/S1360-1385(03)00129-8.
In plants, RNA silencing plays important roles in antiviral defence, genome integrity and development. This process involves nucleotide sequence-specific interactions that are mediated by small RNA molecules of 21-25 nucleotides. Although the core biochemical reactions of RNA silencing have been well characterized in animals, such information was crucially missing in plants. Recent work now addresses this question and reveals an overall similarity between the plant and animal RNA-silencing pathways, as well as some intriguing plant-specific aspects.
在植物中，RNA沉默在抗病毒防御、基因组完整性和发育过程中发挥着重要作用。这一过程涉及由21至25个核苷酸的小RNA分子介导的核苷酸序列特异性相互作用。虽然RNA沉默的核心生化反应在动物中已得到充分表征，但在植物中却至关重要地缺失此类信息。最近的研究工作现在解决了这个问题，并揭示了植物和动物RNA沉默途径之间的总体相似性，以及一些有趣的植物特异性方面。
