Effect of deletion or isoform-specific expression of the C. elegans mbl-1 gene on miRNA expression.

MBL-1 is an RNA-binding protein important for the differentiation and development of many animal tissues. An evolutionarily conserved alternative splicing mechanism generates MBL-1 isoforms that are either expressed in the nucleus or show a more cytoplasmic distribution. We used small RNA-seq to investigate the individual contribution of evolutionarily conserved mbl-1 isoform expression of C. elegans miRNA expression. The analysis was done on L4 stage animals Whole organism RNA was isolated with the TRIzol method at the L4 stage and then analyzed using RNA-seq. Three biological replicates were used for each condition (wild-type, mbl-1 mutant, short MBL-1 protein isoform expressing mutant, and long MBL-1 protein expressing mutant). miRNA expression was compared to the N2 wild-type strain.