Depicker A, Montagu M V
Laboratorium voor Genetica, Department of Genetics, Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB), Universiteit Gent, KL Ledeganckstraat 35, B-9000, Gent, Belgium.
Curr Opin Cell Biol. 1997 Jun;9(3):373-82. doi: 10.1016/s0955-0674(97)80010-5.
Overexpression of chimeric transgenes in plants can trigger post-transcriptional gene silencing that is dependent on epigenetic information and physiological conditions. The current view is that unproductive RNA serves as a crucial signal for gene silencing, although direct evidence is lacking for this theory. A signalling cascade then leads to strongly enhanced turnover of all RNAs that share a critical degree of sequence similarity. The molecular details of the mechanism are, however, insufficiently understood to explain the phenomenon completely and to comprehend its biological significance.
嵌合转基因在植物中的过表达可引发依赖于表观遗传信息和生理条件的转录后基因沉默。目前的观点是，无活性RNA作为基因沉默的关键信号，尽管这一理论缺乏直接证据。随后，一个信号级联反应导致所有具有关键程度序列相似性的RNA的周转大幅增强。然而，该机制的分子细节尚未得到充分理解，无法完全解释这一现象及其生物学意义。
