Leitão Ana Lúcia, Enguita Francisco J
MEtRICs, Department of Sciences and Technology of Biomass, NOVA School of Science and Technology, FCT NOVA, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal.
Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Prof. Egas Moniz, 1649-028 Lisboa, Portugal.
Noncoding RNA. 2022 Jan 18;8(1):10. doi: 10.3390/ncrna8010010.
Micro-RNAs (miRNAs) are a class of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) that act as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression. Since their discovery in 1993, they have been the subject of deep study due to their involvement in many important biological processes. Compared with other ncRNAs, miRNAs are generated from devoted transcriptional units which are processed by a specific set of endonucleases. The contribution of structural biology methods for understanding miRNA biogenesis and function has been essential for the dissection of their roles in cell biology and human disease. In this review, we summarize the application of structural biology for the characterization of the molecular players involved in miRNA biogenesis (processors and effectors), starting from the X-ray crystallography methods to the more recent cryo-electron microscopy protocols.
微小RNA（miRNA）是一类非编码RNA（ncRNA），作为基因表达的转录后调节因子发挥作用。自1993年被发现以来，由于它们参与许多重要的生物学过程，一直是深入研究的对象。与其他ncRNA相比，miRNA由专门的转录单元产生，这些转录单元由一组特定的核酸内切酶进行加工。结构生物学方法对于理解miRNA生物发生和功能的贡献，对于剖析它们在细胞生物学和人类疾病中的作用至关重要。在这篇综述中，我们总结了结构生物学在表征参与miRNA生物发生的分子参与者（加工者和效应器）方面的应用，从X射线晶体学方法到最近的冷冻电子显微镜技术。
