How does miRNA regulate mRNA?

miRNAs (microRNAs) are short non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally. They generally bind to the 3′-UTR (untranslated region) of their target mRNAs and repress protein production by destabilizing the mRNA and translational silencing.

What is miRNA and mRNA?

Correlation between miRNA and mRNA MicroRNA (miRNA) is a type of non-coding RNA (RNA that does not encode a protein) with a length of about 22 base. It binds to a complementary sequence in the 3’UTR of mRNA (coding RNA), and thereby regulates the gene expression.

What happens when miRNA binds to mRNA?

microRNA controls gene expression mainly by binding with messenger RNA (mRNA) in the cell cytoplasm. Instead of being translated quickly into a protein, the marked mRNA will be either destroyed and its components recycled, or it will be preserved and translated later.

Does miRNA stabilize mRNA?

miRNPs enhance protein yield of target mRNA by mRNA degradation and/or translational repression. Nevertheless, miRNA-mediated upregulation of target mRNA can be elucidated by both enhancing mRNA stability and translational activation via direct activation and/or indirect derepression.

What controls miRNA expression?

The expression of miRNAs is regulated by multiple factors and molecular mechanisms, from those affecting the DNA copy number, methylation of CpGs, transcription factors, and miRNA biogenesis, to those modifying the miRNA binding site’s availability in the mRNA sequence.

Does miRNA degrade mRNA?

miRNAs can bind to target messenger RNA (mRNA) transcripts of protein-coding genes and negatively control their translation or cause mRNA degradation. It is of key importance to identify the miRNA targets accurately.

How do you detect miRNA?

Traditional methods for detection of miRNAs include Northern blotting, quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), next-generation sequencing, and microarray-based hybridization (5, 8, 9).

How is miRNA generated?

Mature miRNA is generated through two-step cleavage of primary miRNA (pri-miRNA), which incorporates into the effector complex RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). The miRNA functions as a guide by base-pairing with target mRNA to negatively regulate its expression.

Is miRNA reversible?

In addition to cleaving their targets, plant miRNAs can direct the translational inhibition of highly complementary targets, raising the possibility of reversible regulation18. In animals, few mRNAs seem to be sufficiently complementary to miRNAs to be cleaved by a Slicer mechanism.

How does siRNA silence gene expression?

The siRNA-induced post transcriptional gene silencing starts with the assembly of the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). The complex silences certain gene expression by cleaving the mRNA molecules coding the target genes. This cleavage results in mRNA fragments that are further degraded by cellular exonucleases.

How do miRNAs silence gene expression?

MicroRNAs are ∼22 nucleotide-long RNAs that silence gene expression posttranscriptionally by binding to the 3′ untranslated regions of target mRNAs. Although much is known about their biogenesis and biological functions, the mechanisms allowing miRNAs to silence gene expression in animal cells are still under debate.

What happens if there are multiple miRNA alignments?

If there are multiple alignments to different miRNAs or different regions of the same miRNA, the read is flagged as cross-mapped and every miRNA annotation is preserved. The latter contains observed isoforms. miRNA-Seq reads that have been aligned to the GRCh38 build.

What does microRNA stand for in gene regulation?

microRNA (miRNA) and Gene Regulation Abbreviation Full name mRNA Messenger RNA miRNA microRNA shRNA Small hairpin RNA siRNA Small interfering RNA

How are miRNAs complementary to other messenger RNAs?

The function of miRNAs appears to be in gene regulation. For that purpose, a miRNA is complementary to a part of one or more messenger RNAs (mRNAs). Animal miRNAs are usually complementary to a site in the 3′ UTR whereas plant miRNAs are usually complementary to coding regions of mRNAs.

How are miRNA-seq data used to determine mRNA targets?

Central to miRNA-seq data analysis is the ability to 1) obtain miRNA abundance levels from sequence reads, 2) discover novel miRNAs and then be able to 3) determine the differentially expressed miRNA and their 4) associated mRNA gene targets.