Species Human Entrez 54487 | Human Mouse Ensembl ENSG00000128191 | |
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Aliases DGCR8, C22orf12, DGCRK6, Gy1, pasha, Pasha, DGCR8 microprocessor complex subunit External IDs MGI: 2151114 HomoloGene: 11223 GeneCards: DGCR8 | ||
The DGCR8 microprocessor complex subunit (DiGeorge syndrome chromosomal [or critical] region 8) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the DGCR8 gene. In other animals, particularly the common model organisms Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans, the protein is known as Pasha (partner of Drosha). It is a required component of the RNA interference pathway.
Function
DGCR8 is localized to the cell nucleus and is required for microRNA (miRNA) processing. It binds to Drosha, an RNase III enzyme, to form the Microprocessor complex that cleaves a primary transcript known as pri-miRNA to a characteristic stem-loop structure known as a pre-miRNA, which is then further processed to miRNA fragments by the enzyme Dicer. DGCR8 contains an RNA-binding domain and is thought to bind pri-miRNA to stabilize it for processing by Drosha.