Disease relevance of DGCR8

• The smaller complex is composed of Drosha and the double-stranded-RNA-binding protein, DGCR8, the product of a gene deleted in DiGeorge syndrome [1].
• We studied the expression level of the miRNA processing enzyme (DICER1, DGCR8, and RNASEN) in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) [2].

High impact information on DGCR8

• (2006) report some of the structural features of the primary transcript that ensure that the Drosha-DGCR8 enzyme complex liberates precisely the correct precursor sequence, enabling production of a fully functional miRNA [3].
• The Drosha-DGCR8 complex initiates microRNA maturation by precise cleavage of the stem loops that are embedded in primary transcripts (pri-miRNAs) [4].
• The human DiGeorge syndrome critical region gene 8 and Its D. melanogaster homolog are required for miRNA biogenesis [5].
• The association with heme promotes dimerization of DGCR8 [6].
• Here we show that the RNA-binding protein DiGeorge critical region-8 (DGCR8), which is essential for the first processing step, is a heme-binding protein [6].

Biological context of DGCR8

• EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: The expression levels of DICER1, DGCR8, and RNASEN mRNA in 73 ESCC tissues were compared with that in corresponding normal esophageal epithelium by Taqman real-time reverse-transcription PCR [2].

Physical interactions of DGCR8

• In this complex, Drosha interacts with DGCR8, which contains two double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-binding domains [7].

Other interactions of DGCR8

• Here we dissected the action mechanism of human Drosha by generating mutants and by characterizing its new interacting partner, DGCR8 [7].

References