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Novel determinants of mammalian primary microRNA processing revealed by systematic evaluation of hairpin-containing transcripts and human genetic variation
Mature microRNAs (miRNAs) are processed from hairpin-containing primary miRNAs (pri-miRNAs). However, rules that distinguish pri-miRNAs from other hairpin-containing transcripts in the genome are incompletely understood. By developing a computational pipeline to systematically evaluate 30 structural...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5340965/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28087842 http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/gr.208900.116 |
Sumario: | Mature microRNAs (miRNAs) are processed from hairpin-containing primary miRNAs (pri-miRNAs). However, rules that distinguish pri-miRNAs from other hairpin-containing transcripts in the genome are incompletely understood. By developing a computational pipeline to systematically evaluate 30 structural and sequence features of mammalian RNA hairpins, we report several new rules that are preferentially utilized in miRNA hairpins and govern efficient pri-miRNA processing. We propose that a hairpin stem length of 36 ± 3 nt is optimal for pri-miRNA processing. We identify two bulge-depleted regions on the miRNA stem, located ∼16–21 nt and ∼28–32 nt from the base of the stem, that are less tolerant of unpaired bases. We further show that the CNNC primary sequence motif selectively enhances the processing of optimal-length hairpins. We predict that a small but significant fraction of human single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) alter pri-miRNA processing, and confirm several predictions experimentally including a disease-causing mutation. Our study enhances the rules governing mammalian pri-miRNA processing and suggests a diverse impact of human genetic variation on miRNA biogenesis. |
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