Serva Andrius, Claas Christoph, Starkuviene Vytaute
BioQuant, University of Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
J Nucleic Acids. 2011;2011:870903. doi: 10.4061/2011/870903. Epub 2011 Sep 14.
In the last years miRNAs have increasingly been recognised as potent posttranscriptional regulators of gene expression. Possibly, miRNAs exert their action on virtually any biological process by simultaneous regulation of numerous genes. The importance of miRNA-based regulation in health and disease has inspired research to investigate diverse aspects of miRNA origin, biogenesis, and function. Despite the recent rapid accumulation of experimental data, and the emergence of functional models, the complexity of miRNA-based regulation is still far from being well understood. In particular, we lack comprehensive knowledge as to which cellular processes are regulated by which miRNAs, and, furthermore, how temporal and spatial interactions of miRNAs to their targets occur. Results from large-scale functional analyses have immense potential to address these questions. In this review, we discuss the latest progress in application of high-content and high-throughput functional analysis for the systematic elucidation of the biological roles of miRNAs.
在过去几年中，微小RNA（miRNA）越来越被认为是基因表达强有力的转录后调节因子。miRNA可能通过同时调节众多基因，对几乎任何生物过程发挥作用。基于miRNA的调节在健康和疾病中的重要性激发了研究人员对miRNA起源、生物合成和功能等多个方面的探索。尽管最近实验数据迅速积累，且出现了功能模型，但基于miRNA的调节的复杂性仍远未被充分理解。特别是，我们缺乏关于哪些细胞过程受哪些miRNA调节，以及miRNA与其靶标之间的时空相互作用如何发生的全面知识。大规模功能分析的结果在解决这些问题方面具有巨大潜力。在本综述中，我们讨论了应用高内涵和高通量功能分析系统阐明miRNA生物学作用的最新进展。
