Aedes aegypti Yb defines central hubs at the interface of piRNA biogenesis and target silencing

Our Yb immunoprecipitation of followed by quantitative mass spectrometry identified multiple PIWI proteins (Piwi4, Piwi5, Piwi6), piRNA biogenesis factors (Vreteno, Shutdown, Veneno, Tejas), and mitochondrial proteins (Exd2, Tango11) as Yb binding partners. These findings demonstrate that AeYb functions as a central hub of the somatic piRNA pathway where the molecular machineries required for piRNA biogenesis and gene silencing encounter.