Utilization of inherent miRNAs in functional analyses of Toxoplasma gondii genes

• Toxoplasma microRNAs function as a silencing effector to cause mRNA degradation as well as translation suppression.
• Toxoplasma microRNAs can be directed to effectively silence a gene of interest for functional analysis.
• The silencing effects of Toxoplasma microRNAs can be modulated by the presence of microRNA inhibitors and mimics.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are crucial genetic effectors partaking in numerous mechanisms of gene regulation in eukaryotic organisms. Recent discoveries of miRNA in Toxoplasma gondii, an intracellular obligate parasite of the phylum Apicomplexa, suggested possible roles of T. gondii miRNAs (Tg-miRNAs) in the post-transcriptional gene regulation and in the cell biology of the parasite. To gain a better understanding of the involvement of Tg-miRNAs in regulating the parasite gene expression, a dual luciferase reporter system was used in the examination and evaluation of the effects of endogenous Tg-miRNAs, their mimics and inhibitors. A Renilla luciferase (Rnluc) transcript was engineered to carry independent binding sites of two abundant species, namely Tg-miR-60a and Tg-miR-4a, so that the expression of Rnluc was silenced in a sequence specific manner by Tg-miR-60a and Tg-miR-4a. Notably, Tg-miR-60a, but not Tg-miR-4a, caused the levels of Rnluc transcripts to decrease. These findings strongly suggested that T. gondii employs the Tg-miRNA species-specific mode of silencing actions: transcript degradation by Tg-miR-60a, and translational suppression by Tg-miR-4a. Herein we developed a genetic system that exploits and directs the most abundant Tg-miR-60a for loss-of-function analyses in T. gondii. As a proof of principle, we showed that when the binding sites for Tg-miR-60a were introduced into the parasite transcripts via homologous recombination at the locus of (i) DEAD-box RNA helicase (TgHoDI), or (ii) lactate dehydrogenase isoform 1 (TgLDH1), the expression levels of the selected genes can be altered. It was thus proven that inherit Tg-miR-60a could be directed and used to assist in the loss-of-function analyses.

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