Small RNA sequences from Schizosaccharomyces japonicus

Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are known to be involved in both transposon silencing and centromere function, leading us to investigate the interplay between these two roles in the Schizosaccharomyces lineage. In S. pombe, the centromeric repeats produce dicer-dependent siRNAs that are required for maintenance of centromeric structure, function and transcriptional silencing via Argonaute-dependent heterochromatin formation13. However, transposons are silenced in S. pombe by RNAi-independent mechanisms and do not produce abundant siRNAs. To investigate whether centromere-directed siRNA production is conserved within the transposon-rich centromeres of S. japonicus, we isolated and sequenced small RNAs from log-phase S. japonicus cultures. The small RNAs have a modal size of 23 nucleotides and 94% map to transposons, both telomeric and centromeric. Isolation and computational analysis of small RNAs from wild-type S. japonicus