Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Small RNA Makes Its Move
"It has been known for almost 100 years that when a plant virus infects a leaf, mobile signals are transmitted through vessels in the stem to other leaves to confer resistance to subsequent infection. More recently, the silencing of exogenous transgenes has been shown to involve a mobile signal (1). Although RNA molecules have been implicated in systemic plant cell-to-cell communication, the nature of mobile RNA that silences gene expression has not been clear (2). Now, four studies---including those by Molnar et al. and Dunoyer et al. [...]---report that small interfering RNA (siRNA) and microRNA (miRNA) are mobile signals that control gene expression during plant development." Full perspectve @ Science
