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 Overall design: 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.