SmithRNAs: could mitochondria ‘bend’ nuclear regulation?

This poster is part of a broad study on mitochondrial biology, performed through a non-canonical experimental model of mitochondrial inheritance, the Doubly Uniparental Inheritance (DUI), in the Manila clam <i>Ruditapes philippinarum</i>. DUI evolved from maternal inheritance of Mitochondria and has been proposed to be a <b>resolved genomic conflict</b>, triggered by selfish genes of putative viral origin, invading mtDNAs of some bivalve species, and <b>switching ancestral hermaphroditism into gonochorism</b>. Accordingly, <b>mitochondria </b>in DUI species <b>were suggested to affect the genetic cascade of germ line determination</b>, and <b>RNA interference was a reasonable candidate mechanism</b> for this feature. Actually, in small RNA libraries from enriched mitochondrial fractions of clam testes and ovaries<b>, we found several small non coding RNAs </b>(sncRNAs), <b>produced by either F- or M-mtDNAs</b>. We therefore named them:<b> </b><b>s</b><b>mall mitochondrial highly transcribed RNAs (smithRNAs).</b>