National Facility for Protein Science in Shanghai, Zhangjiang Laboratory, Shanghai, 201210, China.
Department of Etiology, Qidong People's Hospital/Qidong Liver Cancer Institute, Qidong, Jiangsu, 226200, China.
IUBMB Life. 2019 Dec;71(12):1906-1915. doi: 10.1002/iub.2128. Epub 2019 Jul 18.
piRNAs are a large class of small noncoding RNA that interact with an animal-specific class of Argonaute proteins, P-element induced wimpy proteins. piRNAs were initially discovered in mouse testes to be a fundamental component of spermatogenesis. Outside of the germline, piRNAs were found to function in embryogenesis, development, regeneration and cancer cells. However, despite a decade of scrutiny, functional understanding of this class of small RNAs remains very limited. To determine whether there are piRNAs present and involved in the cellular reprogramming process, we extracted piwi-interacting RNA (piRNA) signatures from a small RNA deep sequencing data set of mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs), mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) and reprogrammed stem cells by three different technologies. We successfully identified three piRNA families specifically expressed in these reprogrammed stem cells. Meanwhile, there were almost no piRNAs observed in MEFs and mESCs. Further analysis indicated that these piRNAs may associate with the reprogramming process but not cellular pluripotency. Target gene prediction suggested that at least one of piRNAs, piR-mmu-64162, may take part in the reprogramming process by regulating cell senescence. Overall, we firstly identified the potential reprogramming associated piRNAs, shedding new light on piRNA functions.
piRNAs 是一大类小非编码 RNA，与动物特异性的 Argonaute 蛋白家族（P 元素诱导的软弱蛋白）相互作用。piRNAs 最初在小鼠睾丸中被发现是精子发生的基本组成部分。在生殖细胞外，piRNAs 被发现参与胚胎发生、发育、再生和癌细胞。然而，尽管经过了十年的研究，人们对这类小 RNA 的功能仍知之甚少。为了确定是否存在参与细胞重编程过程的 piRNAs，我们从小鼠胚胎成纤维细胞（MEFs）、小鼠胚胎干细胞（mESCs）和重编程干细胞的小 RNA 深度测序数据集，通过三种不同的技术提取了 piwi 相互作用 RNA（piRNA）特征。我们成功鉴定了三个在这些重编程干细胞中特异性表达的 piRNA 家族。同时，在 MEFs 和 mESCs 中几乎没有观察到 piRNAs。进一步的分析表明，这些 piRNAs 可能与重编程过程相关，但与细胞多能性无关。靶基因预测表明，至少有一个 piRNAs（piR-mmu-64162）可能通过调节细胞衰老参与重编程过程。总的来说，我们首次鉴定了潜在的与重编程相关的 piRNAs，为 piRNA 的功能提供了新的视角。
