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A piRNA Pathway Primed by Individual Transposons Is Linked to De Novo DNA Methylation in Mice

Open access
Aravin, Alexei A., Sachidanandam, Ravi, Bourc'his, Deborah, Schaefer, Christopher, Pezic, Dubravka, Toth, Katalin Fejes, Bestor, Timothy, Hannon, Gregory J.·2008·Molecular Cell

Abstract

piRNAs and Piwi proteins have been implicated in transposon control and are linked to transposon methylation in mammals. Here, we examined the construction of the piRNA system in the restricted developmental window in which methylation patterns are set during mammalian embryogenesis. We find robust expression of two Piwi family proteins, MIWI2 and MILI. Their associated piRNA profiles reveal differences from Drosophila wherein large piRNA clusters act as master regulators of silencing. Instead, in mammals, dispersed transposon copies initiate the pathway, producing primary piRNAs, which predominantly join MILI in the cytoplasm. MIWI2, whose nuclear localization and association with piRNAs depend upon MILI, is enriched for secondary piRNAs antisense to the elements that it controls. The Piwi pathway lies upstream of known mediators of DNA methylation, since piRNAs are still produced in Dnmt3L mutants, which fail to methylate transposons. This implicates piRNAs as specificity determinants of DNA methylation in germ cells.

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Metadata

Authors
Aravin, A. A., Sachidanandam, R., Bourc'his, D., Schaefer, C., Pezic, D., Toth, K. F., Bestor, T., & Hannon, G. J.
Venue
Molecular Cell
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2008-09
Volume
31
Issue
6
Pages
785-799
ISSN
1097-2765 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W1990654003
Cited by
1,173
References
5
FWCI
24.07
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
bronze

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: A piRNA Pathway Primed by Individual Transposons Is Linked to De Novo DNA Methylation in Mice. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1016/j.molcel.2008.09.003
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Aravin, A. A., Sachidanandam, R., Bourc'his, D., Schaefer, C., Pezic, D., Toth, K. F., Bestor, T., & Hannon, G. J. (2008). A piRNA Pathway Primed by Individual Transposons Is Linked to De Novo DNA Methylation in Mice. Molecular Cell. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2008.09.003

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

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