EXPLORING piRNA EXPRESSION PROFILE DURING DROSOPHILA NERVE CELL DEVELOPMENT AN INVIVO AND INSILICO COMBINATION STUDY

Abstract

Small RNA plays important role in regulation of gene expression and decides the cell fate. newlineThey are found to regulate mRNA transcript which in turn are responsible for translating into newlineproteins. They are 20-30 nucleotides in size and are transcribed from DNA. Various small newlineRNA are classified based on different processing and silencing mechanism with distinctive newlinecharacteristics in association with type of Argonaut (AGO) protein as microRNA (miRNA), newlineendogenous siRNA, PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNAs). Recent discovery of PIWI-interacting newlineRNAs revealed many mysterious dimensions of biology as they are known to regulate the newlineancient relics called as transposons or jumping genes . Previously PIWI-piRNA pathway newlinewas known to be germline specific but recent studies shown their strong role in somatic cells newlineand neurons in diverse organism. newlineThe main focus of our study is to find out the role of piRNAs and PIWI-piRNA pathway in newlineneurons including their involvement in axon regeneration, behavior, memory formation, and newlineits role in neurodegenerative disorders. The computational methodology is developed to find newlineout putative piRNAs from Next generation RNA sequencing data of flies brain and newlineidentifying differential gene expression in ageing flies and TAU mutated flies. newlineChapter 1: It includes several concepts and introduction of PIWI-piRNAs biogenesis and newlinetheir pathways in transposon regulation. Feature analysis of various in silico techniques used newlinefor identification of piRNA from transcriptome. Various studies are compiled to find the role newlineof piRNA in neurons and their expression in genes and pathways in neurodegenerative newlinedisorders and aging in Drosophila model. The platform and software used for insilico studies newlinehave also been introduced. newline newlineChapter 2: This chapter consists of identification of protein coding regions and noncoding newlineregions which shows differential expression in TAU mutated flies. The Drosophila model is newlineused to identify the differential gene expression caused due to mutation. It was 15 genes and newline5 ncRNAs were showing