Comprehensive Analysis of 15-26 nt RNAs in epimastigote Trypanosomacruzi Reveals Putative Maxicircle-encoded gRNA Genes

Small RNAs are increasingly recognized as important regulators of diverse cellular functions throughout eukarya. We performed characterization of the steady-state short transcriptome of Trypanosoma cruzi, a medically important parasite of the Americas. T. cruzi is devoid of functional RNA interference, and there is no evidence of canonical classes of regulatory RNAs (e.g. miRNAs, siRNAs and piwiRNAs). Genome-wide analyses of small RNA-producing loci were performed and revealed 557,699 unique small RNA-sequences of the median length 19 nucleotides.