Cell-type-specific profiling of loaded miRNAs from Caenorhabditis elegans reveals spatial and temporal flexibility in Argonaute loading [miRNA-seq]

We aimed to characterize the cell-type specific loading patterns of miRNAs in c.elegans. We expressed cell-type specific HA-epitope tagged versions of Argonaute-like 1 (ALG-1) and ALG-2 from three major tissue types i.e. intestine, nervous system and body wall mucle. We found that most miRNAs display highly cell-type specific loading patterns. ALG-1 is more ubiquitously loaded whereas ALG-2 is eniriched for miRNA loading within the nervous system. Addtionally we show that there is flexibility in ALG loading which changes during the aging process. Overall design: A total of 18 samples were anaysed (9 different stains of c.elegans each with biological replicated including; negative control, ALG-1 and ALG-2 from each of the 3 cell-types intestine, nervous system, body wall muscle and GABAergic neurons). Individual biological samples were immunopreciptiated and purified RNA extracted to assess cell-type specfic loading patterns.