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Differential Expression of Toxoplasma gondii MicroRNAs in Murine and Human Hosts

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Non-coding RNAs and Inter-kingdom Communication

Abstract

MicroRNAs are short RNA sequences involved in post-transcriptional gene regulation. MicroRNAs are known for a wide variety of species ranging from bacteria to plants. It has become clear that some cross-kingdom regulation is possible especially between viruses and their hosts. We hypothesized that intracellular parasites, like Toxoplasma gondii, similar to viruses would be able to modulate their host’s gene expression. We were able to show that T. gondii produces many putative pre-miRNAs which are actually transcribed. Furthermore, some of these expressed pre-miRNAs have a striking resemblance to host mature miRNAs. Previous studies indicated that T. gondii infection coincides with increased abundance of some miRNAs. Here we were able to show that many of these miRNAs have close relatives in T. gondii which may not be distinguishable using PCR. Taken together, the similarity to host miRNAs, their confirmed expression, and their upregulation during infection, it suggests that T. gondii actively transfers miRNAs to regulate its host. We conclude, that this type of cross-kingdom regulation may be possible, but that targeted analysis is necessary to consolidate our computational findings.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Grant No. 113E326) awarded to JA.

Supplementary Materials

Supplementary material is available at the following URL: http://bioinformatics.iyte.edu.tr/supplements/ncRNA2016.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Molecular Biology and Genetics, Izmir Institute of Technology, 35430, Urla, Izmir, Turkey

    Müşerref Duygu Saçar Demirci & Jens Allmer

  2. Biotechnology, Izmir Institute of Technology, 35430, Urla, Izmir, Turkey

    Caner Bağcı

  3. Bionia Incorporated, IZTEKGEB A8, 35430, Urla, Izmir, Turkey

    Jens Allmer

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  1. Müşerref Duygu Saçar Demirci
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  2. Caner Bağcı
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Correspondence to Jens Allmer .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Caparica, Portugal

    Ana Lúcia Leitão

  2. Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Francisco J. Enguita

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Saçar Demirci, M.D., Bağcı, C., Allmer, J. (2016). Differential Expression of Toxoplasma gondii MicroRNAs in Murine and Human Hosts. In: Leitão, A., Enguita, F. (eds) Non-coding RNAs and Inter-kingdom Communication. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39496-1_9

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