| First Author | Morita S | Year | 2009 |
| Journal | PLoS One | Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 1 | Pages | e4212 |
| PubMed ID | 19148298 | Mgi Jnum | J:144986 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:3833046 | Doi | 10.1371/journal.pone.0004212 |
| Citation | Morita S, et al. (2009) Dicer is required for maintaining adult pancreas. PLoS One 4(1):e4212 |
| abstractText | Dicer1, an essential component of RNA interference and the microRNA pathway, has many important roles in the morphogenesis of developing tissues. Dicer1 null mice have been reported to die at E7.5; therefore it is impossible to study its function in adult tissues. We previously reported that Dicer1-hypomorphic mice, whose Dicer1 expression was reduced to 20% in all tissues, were unexpectedly viable. Here we analyzed these mice to ascertain whether the down-regulation of Dicer1 expression has any influence on adult tissues. Interestingly, all tissues of adult (8-10 week old) Dicer1-hypomorphic mice were histologically normal except for the pancreas, whose development was normal at the fetal and neonatal stages; however, morphologic abnormalities in Dicer1-hypomorphic mice were detected after 4 weeks of age. This suggested that Dicer1 is important for maintaining the adult pancreas. |
