Laboratory of Neuropsychopharmacology and Functional Neurogenomics - Dipartimento di Scienze Farmacologiche e Biomolecolari and CEND, Università degli Studi di Milano, 20133, Milan, Italy.
Biology and Genetic Division, Department of Molecular and Translational Medicine, University of Brescia, Viale Europa 11, 25123, Brescia, Italy.
Mol Neurobiol. 2018 Oct;55(10):7717-7727. doi: 10.1007/s12035-018-0951-x. Epub 2018 Feb 19.
Post-transcriptional modifications are essential mechanisms for mRNA biogenesis and function in eukaryotic cells. Beyond well-characterized events such as splicing, capping, and polyadenylation, there are several others, as RNA editing mechanisms and regulation of transcription mediated by miRNAs that are taking increasing attention in the last years. RNA editing through A-to-I deamination increases transcriptomic complexity, generating different proteins with amino acid substitution from the same transcript. On the other hand, miRNAs can regulate gene expression modulating target mRNA decay and translation. Interestingly, recent studies highlight the possibility that miRNAs might undergo editing themselves. This mainly translates in the degradation or uncorrected maturation of miRNAs but also in the recognition of different targets. The presence of edited and unedited forms of the same miRNA may have important biological implications in both health and disease. Here we review ongoing investigations on miRNA RNA editing with the aim to shed light on the growing importance of this mechanism in adding complexity to post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression.
转录后修饰是真核细胞中 mRNA 生物发生和功能的重要机制。除了剪接、加帽和多聚腺苷酸化等特征明显的事件外，近年来，RNA 编辑机制和 miRNA 介导的转录调控等其他机制也引起了越来越多的关注。通过 A 到 I 的脱氨酶进行 RNA 编辑增加了转录组的复杂性，从同一转录本产生具有氨基酸取代的不同蛋白质。另一方面，miRNA 可以通过调节靶 mRNA 的降解和翻译来调节基因表达。有趣的是，最近的研究强调了 miRNA 本身可能经历编辑的可能性。这主要导致 miRNA 的降解或未校正成熟，但也导致对不同靶标的识别。同一 miRNA 的编辑和未编辑形式的存在可能对健康和疾病都具有重要的生物学意义。在这里，我们回顾了 miRNA RNA 编辑的研究进展，旨在阐明这一机制在增加基因表达转录后调控复杂性方面的重要性。
