Brodersen Peter, Voinnet Olivier
Institut de Biologie Moléculaire des Plantes, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 12 rue du Général Zimmer, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France.
Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2009 Feb;10(2):141-8. doi: 10.1038/nrm2619. Epub 2009 Jan 15.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are fundamental regulatory elements of animal and plant gene expression. Although rapid progress in our understanding of miRNA biogenesis has been achieved by experimentation, computational approaches have also been influential in determining the general principles that are thought to govern miRNA target recognition and mode of action. We discuss how these principles are being progressively challenged by genetic and biochemical studies. In addition, we discuss the role of target-site-specific endonucleolytic cleavage, which is the hallmark of experimental RNA interference and a mechanism that is used by plant miRNAs and a few animal miRNAs. Generally thought to be merely a degradation mechanism, we propose that this might also be a biogenesis mechanism for biologically functional, non-coding RNA fragments.
微小RNA（miRNA）是动植物基因表达的基本调控元件。尽管通过实验在我们对miRNA生物合成的理解上取得了快速进展，但计算方法在确定被认为支配miRNA靶标识别和作用模式的一般原则方面也发挥了重要作用。我们讨论了这些原则如何受到遗传和生化研究的逐步挑战。此外，我们讨论了靶位点特异性核酸内切酶切割的作用，这是实验性RNA干扰的标志，也是植物miRNA和少数动物miRNA所使用的一种机制。通常认为这仅仅是一种降解机制，我们提出这也可能是生物功能非编码RNA片段的一种生物合成机制。
