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Published Online September 10, 2009
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1176945

Research Articles

Submitted on May 28, 2009
Accepted on August 31, 2009

RNAi in Budding Yeast

Ines A. Drinnenberg 1{dagger}, David E. Weinberg 2{dagger}, Kathleen T. Xie 2{dagger}, Jeffrey P. Mower 3, Kenneth H. Wolfe 4, Gerald R. Fink 5, David P. Bartel 2*

1 Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, 9 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
2 Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, 9 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3 Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.; Present address: Center for Plant Science Innovation and Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
4 Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.
5 Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, 9 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
David P. Bartel , E-mail: dbartel{at}wi.mit.edu

{dagger}These authors contributed equally to this work.

RNA interference (RNAi), a gene-silencing pathway triggered by double-stranded RNA, is conserved in diverse eukaryotic species but has been lost in the model budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Here, we show that RNAi is present in other budding-yeast species, including Saccharomyces castellii and Candida albicans. These species use noncanonical Dicer proteins to generate small interfering RNAs, which mostly correspond to transposable elements and Y' subtelomeric repeats. In S. castellii, RNAi mutants are viable but have excess Y' mRNA levels. In S. cerevisiae, introducing Dicer and Argonaute of S. castellii restores RNAi, and the reconstituted pathway silences endogenous retrotransposons. These results identify a novel class of Dicer proteins, bring the tool of RNAi to the study of budding yeasts, and bring the tools of budding yeast to the study of RNAi.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Rejoice--RNAi for Yeast.
D. Moazed (2009)
Science 326, 533-534
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