The cytoplasmic RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) contains dsRNA binding proteins, including protein kinase RNA activator (PACT), transactivation response RNA binding protein (TRBP), and Dicer, that process pre-microRNAs into mature microRNAs (miRNAs) that target specific mRNA species for regulation. There is increasing evidence for important functional interactions between the miRNA and nuclear receptor (NR) signaling networks, with recent data showing that estrogen, acting through the estrogen receptor, can modulate initial aspects of nuclear miRNA processing. Here, we show that the cytoplasmic RISC proteins PACT, TRBP, and Dicer are steroid receptor RNA activator (SRA) binding NR coregulators that target steroid-responsive promoters and regulate NR activity and downstream gene expression. Furthermore, each of the RISC proteins, together with Argonaute 2, associates with SRA and specific pre-microRNAs in both the nucleus and cytoplasm, providing evidence for links between NR-mediated transcription and some of the factors involved in miRNA processing.noncoding RNA | androgen action | prostate cancer M icroRNAs (miRNAs) are 22-nt noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression by associating with the multiprotein RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) and guiding RISC to silence specific mRNA species by mRNA degradation or translational inhibition (1). miRNAs are derived from large primary RNA transcripts, which are processed in the nucleus by Drosha/ Pasha into ∼70-nt precursor (pre-miRNA) duplexes. These duplexes are exported to the cytoplasm, and their conversion to mature 22-nt miRNAs is mediated by a transactivation response (TAR) RNA binding protein (TRBP)-Dicer complex (1), which provides a platform for RISC assembly and aids recruitment of Argonaute 2 (Ago2), the catalytic enzyme of RISC required for miRNA processing (2, 3). Protein kinase RNA (PKR) activator (PACT) is also integral to the RISC complex and associates with Dicer (4). TRBP and PACT are critical for efficient miRNA processing, because their depletion results in decreased mature miRNA levels and target gene silencing (2, 4, 5).Ligand-activated signaling by nuclear receptors (NRs) plays a key role in the promotion of human tumorigenesis. NR coregulators are a group of >300 molecules that act to fine tune ligand-induced gene transcription by acting as either coactivators [e.g., steroid receptor coactivator-1 (SRC-1)] or corepressors [e.g., nuclear receptor corepressor1 (NCoR1)] (6). One of the NR coregulators, steroid receptor RNA activator (SRA), is unique, because its RNA transcript functions to coactivate NR activity (7-9).Several links between miRNA pathways and NR action have been reported. miRNAs can regulate NR signaling at different levels, including targeting NRs [e.g., estrogen receptor-α (ERα)] (10, 11) or NR coregulator transcripts (e.g., amplified in breast cancer 1) (12). Conversely, NRs regulate an array of miRNAs in endocrine tissues (13). For example, ERα can regulate miRNA-21 expression at the transcriptional level (14) and the...