RNA silencing is a potent means of antiviral defense in plants and animals. A hallmark of this defense response is the production of 21- to 24-nucleotide viral small RNAs via mechanisms that remain to be fully understood. Many viruses encode suppressors of RNA silencing, and some viral RNAs function directly as silencing suppressors as counterdefense. The occurrence of viroid-specific small RNA...

Objective(s): The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of chloride channel protein 2 (ClC-2) in glutamate-induced apoptosis in the retinal ganglion cell line (RGC-5). Materials and Methods: RGC-5 cells were treated with 1 mM glutamate for 24 hr. The expression of ClC-2, Bax, and Bcl-2 was detected by western blot analysis. Cell survival and apoptosis were measured by 3-(4,5-dimeth...

RNA silencing is an ancient eukaryotic pathway in which double stranded RNA (dsRNA) triggers destruction of related RNAs in the cell. Early studies in plants pointed to a role for this pathway as a defense against viruses. Most known plant viruses have RNA genomes and replicate via dsRNA intermediates, thereby serving as potent inducers of RNA silencing early in replication and as silencing tar...

In plants, transgenes with inverted repeats are used to induce efficient RNA silencing, which is also frequently induced by highly transcribed sense transgenes. RNA silencing induced by sense transgenes is dependent on RNA-dependent RNA polymerase 6 (RDR6), which converts single-stranded (ss) RNA into double-stranded (ds) RNA. By contrast, it has been proposed that RNA silencing induced by self...

RNA processing is essential factor for synthesis of functional and structural proteins in eukaryote cells. In eukaryote organisms it will be initiated with transcription of DNA in nucleolus and terminated to mRNA translation in cytoplasm, finally mRNA degraded. Protein synthesis followed as different steps, includes 5' capping, poly adenylating, processing and transferring from nucleolus to cyt...

In plants, non-cell autonomous RNA silencing spreads between cells and over long distances. Recent work has revealed insight on the genetic and molecular components essential for cell-to-cell movement of RNA silencing in Arabidopsis. Using a local RNA silencing assay, we report on a distinct mechanism that may govern the short-range (6-10 cell) trafficking of virus-induced RNA silencing from ep...