植物microRNAs研究进展

植物microRNAs(miRNAs)是一类与RNA诱导沉默复合体相关的约由22个核苷酸组成的单链小RNA分子, 其主要功能是, 通过特异性剪切靶mRNA或阻遏靶mRNA的正常翻译在转录后水平调控基因的负表达。植物miRNAs的靶标主要是参与调控植物生长发育和防御应答的转录因子家族。文章主要综述miRNAs在植物体内的生物发生、作用机制及其调控作用研究新进展。     

干细胞研究的新途径:miRNAs

微小RNA(microRNAs,miRNAs)是一类内源性的非编码单链RNA,能够通过与靶mRNA特异性的碱基配对而导致靶mRNA降解或抑制其翻译,从而对基因进行转录后调控。干细胞的自我更新和多向分化过程依赖于广泛而多样的调控机制,miRNAs正是这些调控机制中非常重要的一类分子。研究发现,干细胞的自我更新功能需要多种miRNAs的参与来维持;干细胞的分化也是多种miRNAs参与调控的结果。miRNAs可以作为干细胞研究的一个新的切入点。     

miRNAs与植物生长发育的调控

miRNAs是microRNAs的简称,是长度约19～25 nt的单链核苷酸片段,它们广泛存在于真核生物中.miRNAs可以调节靶基因的转录和翻译.miRNAs介导调控的靶基因很多都是转录因子.近来发现和鉴定的许多植物miRNAs在植物生长发育中起着关键的调节作用.该文概述了miRNAs的特征、作用机制、参与miRNAs途径的蛋白质、miRNAs途径的突变体、miRNAs介导的植物生长发育调控以及miRNAs与siRNAs途径交互作用的最新研究进展.     

番茄中microRNAs研究进展

MicroRNAs(miRNAs)是一类特殊的、具有沉默作用的小分子RNA,它能够调控真核生物的基因表达.在植物中,miRNAs通过与靶mRNA互补配对、引起靶mRNA的降解或翻译阻遏的方式来起调控作用.作为一种研究果实成熟衰老的模式植物,近年来,番茄miRNAs的研究取得了很大进展.在番茄中,miRNAs几乎参与了所...     

MicroRNAs与胚胎干细胞研究

MicroRNAs(miRNAs)是一种大小约20～25个碱基的非编码小分子RNA,一般通过特异性抑制靶蛋白翻译或降解靶基因mRNA发挥负调控基因表达的作用.胚胎干细胞(embryonic stem cells,ES细胞)是从植入前早期胚胎内细胞团或原始生殖细胞中分离得到并能在体外长期培养的高度未分化的多能细胞系,在揭示胚胎早期发育机理、药物筛选、临床再生医学等领域具有广泛的应用前景.最近研究发现miRNAs在ES细胞自我更新和分化过程中均发挥着重要的调控作用,但具体调控机制尚未完全阐明.进一步深入研究miRNAs在ES细胞中的作用,全面了解ES细胞自我更新和定向分化的机制是实现ES细胞广阔临床应用前景的基础.     

植物microRNAs在植物发育和非生物胁迫响应中的作用

microRNAs(miRNAs)是一类内源的长度约为22个核苷酸的非编码小分子RNA,其通过对靶基因mRNA进行切割或翻译抑制调节mRNA的表达,在植物中起到重要的作用.主要介绍了植物miRNAs的特征、合成和作用机制,综述了miRNAs在植物生长发育和非生物胁迫响应中的作用.     

miRNA与其靶mRNA的相互作用：绑定位点的质量与数量特征的整合计算分析

miRNAs通过完全或不完全的碱基互补绑定到信使RNA(mRNA)上,通过抑制翻译或者直接导致mRNA降解的方式来调节靶基因的表达．为了研究miRNAs在转录水平上面的调控作用,两种人类基因组中组织特异的miRNAs(miR-1和miR-124)被转染到HeLa细胞中,微阵列(microarray)分析转染前后细胞中各基因mRNA表达水平变化情况的结果表明：动物基因组中靶基因与miRNAs不完全的碱基互补也会导致mRNA的直接降解．通过分析实验得到的mRNA表达水平变化数据,发现这相同miRNA的不同靶基因mRNA表达水平的下调倍数有着明显的差别,推测这些靶基因mRNA序列本身存在某些影响其受调节程度的因素．为此,提取和分析这些靶基因mRNA的序列特征,通过对这些序列特征与mRNA表达水平下调数据进行统计相关分析,最终发现,miRNA靶基因受调节的程度与以下几个因素相关联：mRNA序列中miRNA靶位点的个数,靶位点与miRNA序列碱基互补的程度,以及绑定后形成二级结构的稳定程度(即最低自由能的大小)．在此基础上,初步建立起一个多因子作用下的miRNA 靶基因mRNA表达水平下调程度模型,分析表明：该模型在一定程度上可以反映了部分序列特征对于miRNA靶基因mRNA表达水平下调程度的影响．     

microRNAs与血管系统发生及疾病的研究进展

microRNAs(miRNAs)是新近发现的一类长约19-25个核苷酸的内源性微小RNA,通过与靶mRNA的5'或3'的非编码区互补结合而使靶mRNA翻译抑制或降解,在细胞增殖、分化和凋亡,胰岛素分泌,脂肪代谢及肿瘤的发生发展等多种生物学过程中起重要作用.血管是一个复杂的封闭循环性系统,其发育和疾病的发生受到多基因的调控和多因素的影响.近期的研究表明,miRNAs与血管系统的发育及其疾病的发生具有密切的关系.     

miR-155在常见病原微生物感染中的研究进展

microRNAs(miRNAs)是一类长度为17~25 nt,进化上保守的非编码单链小RNA,成熟的miRNAs通过碱基互补配对的方式识别靶mRNA,并根据互补程度介导沉默复合体降解靶mRNA或者阻遏靶mRNA的翻译。miR-155是miRNAs家族中的典型代表,其不仅参与调控肿瘤细胞的增殖、分化和凋亡,而且在微生物感染过程及免疫炎症反应中也发挥着重要作用。将对miR-155在常见的几种病原微生物感染过程中发挥的作用做系统综述。     

MicroRNA在哺乳动物精子发生中的作用

MicroRNAs(miRNAs)是一类长20~24 nt的单链非编码调控RNA序列。miRNA作为基因转录后表达调控分子,通过碱基互补配对的方式与靶mRNA结合,从而导致靶mRNA的降解或抑制其翻译过程。从最早发现存在于秀丽隐杆线虫Caenorhabditis elegans中的miRNA lin-4和let-7至今20多年里,研究人员已陆续从不同的种属中发现了大量的miRNA。近年来随着基因克隆、表达和功能研究技术的应用和发展,通过分析不同动物物种睾丸组织中miRNA的变化表明miRNA与精子发生过程密切相关。此外,miRNA相关的Dicer、Drosha等蛋白在初级精母细胞减数分裂粗线期所发挥的调控功能通过大量啮齿动物基因敲除模型得到证实。本文从miRNA的合成、作用机制和精子发生过程中的调控作用进行综述。     

miRNA repression of translation in?vitro takes place during 43S ribosomal scanning

microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression at multiple levels by repressing translation, stimulating deadenylation and inducing the premature decay of target messenger RNAs (mRNAs). Although the mechanism by which miRNAs repress translation has been widely studied, the precise step targeted and the molecular insights of such repression are still evasive. Here, we have used our newly designed in vitro system, which allows to study miRNA effect on translation independently of deadenylation. By using specific inhibitors of various stages of protein synthesis, we first show that miRNAs target exclusively the early steps of translation with no effect on 60S ribosomal subunit joining, elongation or termination. Then, by using viral proteases and IRES-driven mRNA constructs, we found that translational inhibition takes place during 43S ribosomal scanning and requires both the poly(A) binding protein and eIF4G independently from their physical interaction.     

miRNP:mRNA association in polyribosomes in a human neuronal cell line

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small regulatory RNAs that control gene expression by base-pairing with their mRNA targets. miRNAs assemble into ribonucleoprotein complexes termed miRNPs. Animal miRNAs recognize their mRNA targets via partial antisense complementarity and repress mRNA translation at a step after translation initiation. How animal miRNAs recognize their mRNA targets and how they control their translation is unknown. Here we describe that in a human neuronal cell line, the miRNP proteins eIF2C2 (a member of the Argonaute family of proteins), Gemin3, and Gemin4 along with miRNAs cosediment with polyribosomes. Furthermore, we describe a physical association between a let-7b (miRNA)-containing miRNP and its putative human mRNA target in polyribosome-containing fractions. These findings suggest that miRNP proteins may play important roles in target mRNA recognition and translational repression.     

miRNA regulatory circuits in ES cells differentiation: a chemical kinetics modeling approach

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in gene regulation for Embryonic Stem cells (ES cells), where they either down-regulate target mRNA genes by degradation or repress protein expression of these mRNA genes by inhibiting translation. Well known tables TargetScan and miRanda may predict quite long lists of potential miRNAs inhibitors for each mRNA gene, and one of our goals was to strongly narrow down the list of mRNA targets potentially repressed by a known large list of 400 miRNAs. Our paper focuses on algorithmic analysis of ES cells microarray data to reliably detect repressive interactions between miRNAs and mRNAs. We model, by chemical kinetics equations, the interaction architectures implementing the two basic silencing processes of miRNAs, namely "direct degradation" or "translation inhibition" of targeted mRNAs. For each pair (M,G) of potentially interacting miRMA gene M and mRNA gene G, we parameterize our associated kinetic equations by optimizing their fit with microarray data. When this fit is high enough, we validate the pair (M,G) as a highly probable repressive interaction. This approach leads to the computation of a highly selective and drastically reduced list of repressive pairs (M,G) involved in ES cells differentiation.