miRNPs: a novel class of ribonucleoproteins containing numerous microRNAs.
Mourelatos Z, Dostie J, Paushkin S, Sharma A, Charroux B, Abel L, Rappsilber J, Mann M, Dreyfuss G.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6148, USA.
Gemin3 is a DEAD-box RNA helicase that binds to the Survival of Motor Neurons (SMN) protein and is a component of the SMN complex, which also comprises SMN, Gemin2, Gemin4, Gemin5, and Gemin6. Reduction in SMN protein results in Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a common neurodegenerative disease. The SMN complex has critical functions in the assembly/restructuring of diverse ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes. Here we report that Gemin3 and Gemin4 are also in a separate complex that contains eIF2C2, a member of the Argonaute protein family. This novel complex is a large approximately 15S RNP that contains numerous microRNAs (miRNAs). We describe 40 miRNAs, a few of which are identical to recently described human miRNAs, a class of small endogenous RNAs. The genomic sequences predict that miRNAs are likely to be derived from larger precursors that have the capacity to form stem-loop structures.
Publication Types:
PMID: 11914277 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]PMCID: PMC155365