Sharifnia Panid, Jin Yishi
Division of Biological Sciences, Neurobiology Section, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA ; Neurosciences Graduate Program, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Division of Biological Sciences, Neurobiology Section, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA ; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Front Mol Neurosci. 2015 Jan 12;7:100. doi: 10.3389/fnmol.2014.00100. eCollection 2014.
Neurons have evolved to employ many factors involved in the regulation of RNA processing due to their complex cellular compartments. RNA binding proteins (RBPs) are key regulators in transcription, translation, and RNA degradation. Increasing studies have shown that regulatory RNA processing is critical for the establishment, functionality, and maintenance of neural circuits. Recent advances in high-throughput transcriptomics have rapidly expanded our knowledge of the landscape of RNA regulation, but also raised the challenge for mechanistic dissection of the specific roles of RBPs in complex tissues such as the nervous system. The C. elegans genome encodes many RBPs conserved throughout evolution. The rich analytic tools in molecular genetics and simple neural anatomy of C. elegans offer advantages to define functions of genes in vivo at the level of a single cell. Notably, the discovery of microRNAs has had transformative effects to the understanding of neuronal development, circuit plasticity, and neurological diseases. Here we review recent studies unraveling diverse roles of RBPs in the development, function, and plasticity of C. elegans nervous system. We first summarize the general technologies for studying RBPs in C. elegans. We then focus on the roles of several RBPs that control gene- and cell-type specific production of neuronal transcripts.
由于神经元具有复杂的细胞区室，它们已经进化出利用许多参与RNA加工调控的因子。RNA结合蛋白（RBPs）是转录、翻译和RNA降解中的关键调节因子。越来越多的研究表明，调控性RNA加工对于神经回路的建立、功能和维持至关重要。高通量转录组学的最新进展迅速扩展了我们对RNA调控格局的认识，但也对在诸如神经系统等复杂组织中机械剖析RBPs的特定作用提出了挑战。秀丽隐杆线虫基因组编码了许多在进化过程中保守的RBPs。分子遗传学中丰富的分析工具以及秀丽隐杆线虫简单的神经解剖结构，为在单细胞水平上在体内定义基因功能提供了优势。值得注意的是，微小RNA的发现对理解神经元发育、回路可塑性和神经疾病产生了变革性影响。在这里，我们综述了最近揭示RBPs在秀丽隐杆线虫神经系统发育、功能和可塑性中不同作用的研究。我们首先总结了在秀丽隐杆线虫中研究RBPs的一般技术。然后，我们重点关注几种控制神经元转录本的基因和细胞类型特异性产生的RBPs的作用。
