Testing the evolutionary conservation of miRNA-target pairs identified by a new exhaustive method

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K22460
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 45:Biology at organismal to population levels and anthropology, and related fields
• Research Institution: Tokyo Metropolitan University
• Principal Investigator: Nozawa Masafumi 東京都立大学, 理学研究科, 准教授 (50623534)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-06-28 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 低分子RNA / 遺伝子発現制御 / 進化 / ショウジョウバエ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The method to stably extract miRNA-mRNA pairs and sequence these pairs was not successfully established. Library was constructed from extracts and sequenced, but the reads obtained rarely contained miRNA sequences. On the other hand, the method to obtain high-quality genome assembly from Drosophila species, which was essential for the identification of miRNA-mRNA pairs, was successfully established. Combining long- and short-read sequences, I obtained the genome sequences of four Drosophila species with Scaffold N50 of several Mbps. Furthermore, the Y chromosome sequences of 3 to 16 Mbps were also successfully determined.

Free Research Field

分子進化、ゲノム進化

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究で確立したY染色体配列の決定方法は、今後様々な生物においてゲノム配列を決定する際に重要な基盤となるはずである。特にこれまでなかなか難しかったY染色体の決定方法をある程度確立できたことは、今後、性決定以外の点におけるY染色体の機能や毒性などを研究する上で、重要な基盤になると考えられる。