Vive la différence: biogenesis and evolution of microRNAs in plants and animals

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

MicroRNAs are pervasive in both plants and animals, but many aspects of their biogenesis, function and evolution differ. We reveal how these differences contribute to characteristic features of microRNA evolution in the two kingdoms.

Related collections

Most cited references 95

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Microarray analysis shows that some microRNAs downregulate large numbers of target mRNAs.

Lee P. Lim, Nelson C. Lau, Philip Garrett-Engele … (2005)

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of noncoding RNAs that post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression in plants and animals. To investigate the influence of miRNAs on transcript levels, we transfected miRNAs into human cells and used microarrays to examine changes in the messenger RNA profile. Here we show that delivering miR-124 causes the expression profile to shift towards that of brain, the organ in which miR-124 is preferentially expressed, whereas delivering miR-1 shifts the profile towards that of muscle, where miR-1 is preferentially expressed. In each case, about 100 messages were downregulated after 12 h. The 3' untranslated regions of these messages had a significant propensity to pair to the 5' region of the miRNA, as expected if many of these messages are the direct targets of the miRNAs. Our results suggest that metazoan miRNAs can reduce the levels of many of their target transcripts, not just the amount of protein deriving from these transcripts. Moreover, miR-1 and miR-124, and presumably other tissue-specific miRNAs, seem to downregulate a far greater number of targets than previously appreciated, thereby helping to define tissue-specific gene expression in humans.

0 comments Cited 1430 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Posttranscriptional regulation of the heterochronic gene lin-14 by lin-4 mediates temporal pattern formation in C. elegans.

Bruce Wightman, Ilho Ha, Gary Ruvkun (1993)

During C. elegans development, the temporal pattern of many cell lineages is specified by graded activity of the heterochronic gene Lin-14. Here we demonstrate that a temporal gradient in Lin-14 protein is generated posttranscriptionally by multiple elements in the lin-14 3'UTR that are regulated by the heterochronic gene Lin-4. The lin-14 3'UTR is both necessary and sufficient to confer lin-4-mediated posttranscriptional temporal regulation. The function of the lin-14 3'UTR is conserved between C. elegans and C. briggsae. Among the conserved sequences are seven elements that are each complementary to the lin-4 RNAs. A reporter gene bearing three of these elements shows partial temporal gradient activity. These data suggest a molecular mechanism for Lin-14p temporal gradient formation: the lin-4 RNAs base pair to sites in the lin-14 3'UTR to form multiple RNA duplexes that down-regulate lin-14 translation.

0 comments Cited 1115 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Prediction of mammalian microRNA targets.

Benjamin Lewis, I-hung Shih, Matthew W Jones-Rhoades … (2003)

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) can play important gene regulatory roles in nematodes, insects, and plants by basepairing to mRNAs to specify posttranscriptional repression of these messages. However, the mRNAs regulated by vertebrate miRNAs are all unknown. Here we predict more than 400 regulatory target genes for the conserved vertebrate miRNAs by identifying mRNAs with conserved pairing to the 5' region of the miRNA and evaluating the number and quality of these complementary sites. Rigorous tests using shuffled miRNA controls supported a majority of these predictions, with the fraction of false positives estimated at 31% for targets identified in human, mouse, and rat and 22% for targets identified in pufferfish as well as mammals. Eleven predicted targets (out of 15 tested) were supported experimentally using a HeLa cell reporter system. The predicted regulatory targets of mammalian miRNAs were enriched for genes involved in transcriptional regulation but also encompassed an unexpectedly broad range of other functions.

0 comments Cited 1051 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Genome Biol

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Genome Biol

Title: Genome Biology

Publisher: BioMed Central

ISSN (Print): 1465-6906

ISSN (Electronic): 1465-6914

Publication date (Print): 2011

Publication date (Electronic): 28 April 2011

Volume: 12

Issue: 4

Page: 221

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, 208 Mueller Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802, USA

[2 ]Department of Developmental Biology, Sloan-Kettering Institute, 1275 York Avenue, Box 252, New York, NY 10065, USA

Article

Publisher ID: gb-2011-12-4-221

DOI: 10.1186/gb-2011-12-4-221

PMC ID: 3218855

PubMed ID: 21554756

SO-VID: 4ffea048-1662-4383-b9ab-a6caa282b82e

History

Comments

Comment on this article

scite_

Cited by 174

See all cited by

Most referenced authors 2,071

See all reference authors

Vive la différence: biogenesis and evolution of microRNAs in plants and animals

Read this article at

Abstract

Related collections

Genome Integrity

Most cited references 95

Microarray analysis shows that some microRNAs downregulate large numbers of target mRNAs.

Posttranscriptional regulation of the heterochronic gene lin-14 by lin-4 mediates temporal pattern formation in C. elegans.

Prediction of mammalian microRNA targets.

Author and article information

Journal

Affiliations

Article

History

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 443

Cited by 174

Most referenced authors 2,071