Kim V Narry, Nam Jin-Wu
Department of Biological Sciences and Research Center for Functional Cellulomics, Seoul National University, Seoul, 151-742, Korea.
Trends Genet. 2006 Mar;22(3):165-73. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2006.01.003. Epub 2006 Jan 30.
Discovered just over a decade ago, microRNA (miRNA) is now recognized as one of the major regulatory gene families in eukaryotic cells. Hundreds of miRNAs have been found in animals, plants and viruses, and there are certainly more to come. Through specific base-pairing with mRNAs, these tiny approximately 22-nt RNAs induce mRNA degradation or translational repression, or both. Because a miRNA can target numerous mRNAs, often in combination with other miRNAs, miRNAs operate highly complex regulatory networks. In this article, we summarize the current status of miRNA gene mining and miRNA expression profiling. We also review up-to-date knowledge of miRNA gene structure and the biogenesis mechanism. Our focus is on animal miRNAs.
微小RNA（miRNA）是在十多年前才被发现的，现在它被公认为真核细胞中主要的调控基因家族之一。在动物、植物和病毒中已经发现了数百种miRNA，而且肯定还会有更多发现。通过与mRNA进行特定的碱基配对，这些长度约为22个核苷酸的微小RNA会诱导mRNA降解或翻译抑制，或者两者皆有。由于一个miRNA通常可以与其他miRNA结合，靶向众多mRNA，因此miRNA运作着高度复杂的调控网络。在本文中，我们总结了miRNA基因挖掘和miRNA表达谱分析的现状。我们还回顾了miRNA基因结构和生物发生机制的最新知识。我们重点关注动物miRNA。
