Molecular mechanisms of the initiation of RNA silencing in plants
Research Site : Chief Researcher, Division of Plant Sciences, National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences
Abstract
Plants recognize invading RNAs-like viruses and highly expressed transgenes-as aberrant RNAs and repress them. This mechanism is called RNA silencing and is associated with short interfering RNAs (siRNAs), which induce the cleavage of target RNAs in a sequence-specific manner. This project aims to determine the mechanism of this process by elucidating the nature of the RNAs that are subject to silencing and monitoring the entry of these RNAs into the RNA silencing pathway.
