Akay Alper, Sarkies Peter, Miska Eric A
Wellcome Trust Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, Tennis Court Rd, Cambridge CB2 1QN, UK.
Department of Biochemistry and Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Tennis Court Rd, Cambridge CB2 1QN, UK.
Sci Rep. 2015 Apr 15;5:9597. doi: 10.1038/srep09597.
The discovery of RNA interference (RNAi) in C. elegans has had a major impact on scientific research, led to the rapid development of RNAi tools and has inspired RNA-based therapeutics. Astonishingly, nematodes, planaria and many insects take up double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) from their environment to elicit RNAi; the biological function of this mechanism is unclear. Recently, the E. coli OxyS non-coding RNA was shown to regulate gene expression in C. elegans when E. coli is offered as food. This was surprising given that C. elegans is unlikely to encounter E. coli in nature. To directly test the hypothesis that the E. coli OxyS non-coding RNA triggers the C. elegans RNAi pathway, we sequenced small RNAs from C. elegans after feeding with bacteria. We clearly demonstrate that the OxyS non-coding RNA does not trigger an RNAi response in C. elegans. We conclude that the biology of environmental RNAi remains to be discovered.
RNA干扰（RNAi）在秀丽隐杆线虫中的发现对科学研究产生了重大影响，推动了RNAi工具的迅速发展，并激发了基于RNA的治疗方法。令人惊讶的是，线虫、涡虫和许多昆虫会从周围环境中摄取双链RNA（dsRNA）以引发RNAi；这种机制的生物学功能尚不清楚。最近，当以大肠杆菌作为食物时，大肠杆菌OxyS非编码RNA被证明可调节秀丽隐杆线虫中的基因表达。考虑到秀丽隐杆线虫在自然环境中不太可能遇到大肠杆菌，这一结果令人惊讶。为了直接验证大肠杆菌OxyS非编码RNA触发秀丽隐杆线虫RNAi途径这一假设，我们在用细菌喂食后的秀丽隐杆线虫中对小RNA进行了测序。我们清楚地证明，OxyS非编码RNA不会在秀丽隐杆线虫中引发RNAi反应。我们得出结论，环境RNAi的生物学机制仍有待发现。
