Li Yinuo, Zhang Yue, Liu Mingxi
State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Medicine, Department of Histology and Embryology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Medicine, Clinical Center of Reproductive Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
Front Cell Dev Biol. 2021 Jul 14;9:681188. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2021.681188. eCollection 2021.
The PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA) pathway mainly consists of evolutionarily conserved protein factors. Intriguingly, many mutations of piRNA pathway factors lead to meiotic arrest during spermatogenesis. The majority of piRNA factor-knockout animals show arrested meiosis in spermatogenesis, and only a few show post-meiosis male germ cell arrest. It is still unclear whether the majority of piRNA factors expressed in spermatids are involved in long interspersed nuclear element-1 repression after meiosis, but future conditional knockout research is expected to resolve this. In addition, recent hamster knockout studies showed that a piRNA factor is necessary for oocytes-in complete contrast to the findings in mice. This species discrepancy allows researchers to reexamine the function of piRNA in female germ cells. This mini-review focuses on the current knowledge of protein factors derived from mammalian knockout studies and summarizes their roles in the biogenesis and function of piRNAs.
PIWI相互作用RNA（piRNA）通路主要由进化上保守的蛋白质因子组成。有趣的是，piRNA通路因子的许多突变会导致精子发生过程中的减数分裂停滞。大多数piRNA因子敲除动物在精子发生过程中表现出减数分裂停滞，只有少数表现出减数分裂后雄性生殖细胞停滞。目前尚不清楚精子细胞中表达的大多数piRNA因子是否参与减数分裂后长散在核元件-1的抑制，但未来的条件性敲除研究有望解决这一问题。此外，最近的仓鼠敲除研究表明，与小鼠的研究结果完全相反，一种piRNA因子对卵母细胞是必需的。这种物种差异使研究人员能够重新审视piRNA在雌性生殖细胞中的功能。这篇小型综述聚焦于来自哺乳动物敲除研究的蛋白质因子的当前知识，并总结了它们在piRNA生物发生和功能中的作用。
