Argonaute proteins (AGOs) are essential effectors in RNAmediated gene silencing pathways. They are characterized by a bilobal architecture, in which one lobe contains the N-terminal and PAZ domains and the other contains the MID and PIWI domains. Here, we present the first crystal structure of the MID-PIWI lobe from a eukaryotic AGO, the Neurospora crassa QDE-2 protein.Compared to prokaryotic AGOs, the domain orientation is conserved, indicating a conserved mode of nucleic acid binding. The PIWI domain shows an adaptable surface loop next to a eukaryote-specific α-helical insertion, which are both likely to contact the PAZ domain in a conformation-dependent manner to sense the functional state of the protein. The MID-PIWI interface is hydrophilic and buries residues that were previously thought to participate directly in the allosteric regulation of guide RNA binding. The interface includes the binding pocket for the guide RNA 5′ end, and residues from both domains contribute to binding. Accordingly, micro-RNA (miRNA) binding is particularly sensitive to alteration in the MID-PIWI interface in Drosophila melanogaster AGO1 in vivo. The structure of the QDE-2 MID-PIWI lobe provides molecular and mechanistic insight into eukaryotic AGOs and has significant implications for understanding the role of these proteins in silencing.P roteins of the Argonaute (AGO) family play essential roles in RNA-mediated gene silencing mechanisms in eukaryotes (1, 2). They are loaded with small noncoding RNAs to form the core of RNA-induced silencing complexes, which repress the expression of target genes at the transcriptional or posttranscriptional level (1, 2). The targets to be silenced are selected through base-pairing interactions between the loaded small RNA (also known as the guide RNA) and an mRNA target containing partially or fully complementary sequences (1-3).Thus far, structural information on full-length AGOs has been available only for the homologous proteins from Archaea and Eubacteria, which preferentially use DNA as a guide (4-10). These studies revealed that AGOs consist of four domains: the N-terminal domain; the PAZ domain, which binds the 3′ end of guide RNAs/DNAs; the MID domain, which provides a binding pocket for the 5′ phosphate of guide RNAs/DNAs; and the PIWI domain, which adopts an RNase H fold and has endonucleolytic activity in some, but not all, AGOs (4-11).For the eukaryotic AGO clade of Argonaute proteins, structural information is available only for the isolated PAZ domains of Drosophila melanogaster (Dm) AGO1 and AGO2, human AGO1 (12-16) and the MID domains of human AGO2 and Neurospora crassa (Nc) QDE-2 (17, 18). Structural information is also available for PAZ domains of the PIWI clade of AGOs (19,20). These studies showed that the PAZ and MID domains of eukaryotic AGOs adopt folds similar to the prokaryotic homologs and recognize the 3′-and 5′-terminal nucleotides of the guide strand, respectively, in a similar manner to their prokaryotic counterparts (12-18).Our previous structure of the isolate...