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Originally published in Science Express on 10 September 2009
Science 23 October 2009:
Vol. 326. no. 5952, pp. 544 - 550
DOI: 10.1126/science.1176945
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Research Articles

RNAi in Budding Yeast

Ines A. Drinnenberg,1,2,* David E. Weinberg,1,2,3,* Kathleen T. Xie,1,2,3,* Jeffrey P. Mower,4,{dagger} Kenneth H. Wolfe,4 Gerald R. Fink,1,3 David P. Bartel1,2,3,{ddagger}

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' messenger RNA levels. In S. cerevisiae, introducing Dicer and Argonaute of S. castellii restores RNAi, and the reconstituted pathway silences endogenous retrotransposons. These results identify a previously unknown 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.

1 Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, 9 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
2 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
3 Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
4 Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.

* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} Present address: Center for Plant Science Innovation and Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.

{ddagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: dbartel{at}wi.mit.edu

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