AGO unchained: Canonical and non-canonical roles of Argonaute proteins in mammals

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Review

Laura Sala¹, Srividya Chandrasekhar¹, Joana A. Vidigal^1,*

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¹ Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA

Send correspondence to: Joana A. Vidigal, Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA, Tel: 240-760-6691, E-mail: joana.vidigal@nih.gov

Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2020, 25(1), 1–42; https://doi.org/10.2741/4793

Published: 1 January 2020

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Elucidation of exosomes role in metastasis)

Abstract

Argonaute (AGO) proteins play key roles in animal physiology by binding to small RNAs and regulating the expression of their targets. In mammals, they do so through two distinct pathways: the miRNA pathway represses genes through a multiprotein complex that promotes both decay and translational repression; the siRNA pathway represses transcripts through direct Ago2-mediated cleavage. Here, we review our current knowledge of mechanistic details and physiological requirements of both these pathways and briefly discuss their implications to human disease.

Keywords

microRNAs

endo-siRNAs

Argonaute

mammals

In Vivo

Review

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