Lau N C, Lim L P, Weinstein E G, Bartel D P
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 9 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
Science. 2001 Oct 26;294(5543):858-62. doi: 10.1126/science.1065062.
Two small temporal RNAs (stRNAs), lin-4 and let-7, control developmental timing in Caenorhabditis elegans. We find that these two regulatory RNAs are members of a large class of 21- to 24-nucleotide noncoding RNAs, called microRNAs (miRNAs). We report on 55 previously unknown miRNAs in C. elegans. The miRNAs have diverse expression patterns during development: a let-7 paralog is temporally coexpressed with let-7; miRNAs encoded in a single genomic cluster are coexpressed during embryogenesis; and still other miRNAs are expressed constitutively throughout development. Potential orthologs of several of these miRNA genes were identified in Drosophila and human genomes. The abundance of these tiny RNAs, their expression patterns, and their evolutionary conservation imply that, as a class, miRNAs have broad regulatory functions in animals.
两种小的时序RNA（stRNA），lin-4和let-7，控制秀丽隐杆线虫的发育时间。我们发现这两种调控RNA是一大类21至24个核苷酸的非编码RNA的成员，称为微小RNA（miRNA）。我们报道了秀丽隐杆线虫中55种先前未知的miRNA。这些miRNA在发育过程中具有多样的表达模式：一个let-7旁系同源物与let-7在时间上共表达；单个基因组簇中编码的miRNA在胚胎发生过程中共表达；还有其他一些miRNA在整个发育过程中持续表达。这些miRNA基因中的几个潜在直系同源物在果蝇和人类基因组中被鉴定出来。这些微小RNA的丰度、它们的表达模式以及它们的进化保守性表明，作为一个类别，miRNA在动物中具有广泛的调控功能。
