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Human microRNAs preferentially target genes with intermediate levels of expression and its formation by mammalian evolution

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short, endogenous RNAs that post-transcriptionally repress mRNAs. Over the course of evolution, many new miRNAs are known to have emerged and added to the existing miRNA repertoires of drosophilids and vertebrates. Despite the large number of miRNAs in existence, the complemen...

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Autores principales: Iwama, Hisakazu, Kato, Kiyohito, Imachi, Hitomi, Murao, Koji, Masaki, Tsutomu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5967834/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29795674
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198142
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author Iwama, Hisakazu
Kato, Kiyohito
Imachi, Hitomi
Murao, Koji
Masaki, Tsutomu
author_facet Iwama, Hisakazu
Kato, Kiyohito
Imachi, Hitomi
Murao, Koji
Masaki, Tsutomu
author_sort Iwama, Hisakazu
collection PubMed
description MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short, endogenous RNAs that post-transcriptionally repress mRNAs. Over the course of evolution, many new miRNAs are known to have emerged and added to the existing miRNA repertoires of drosophilids and vertebrates. Despite the large number of miRNAs in existence, the complementary pairing of only ~7 bases between miRNAs and mRNAs is sufficient to induce repression. Thus, miRNA targeting is so widespread that genes coexpressed with a miRNA have evolved to avoid sites that are targeted by the miRNA. Besides this avoidance, little is known about the preferential modes of miRNA targeting. Therefore, to elucidate miRNA targeting preference and avoidance, we evaluated the bias of the number of miRNA targeting occurrences in relation to expression intensities of miRNAs and their coexpressed target mRNAs by surveying transcriptome data from human organs. We found that miRNAs preferentially target genes with intermediate levels of expression, while avoiding highly expressed ones, and that older miRNAs have greater targeting specificity, suggesting that specificity increases during the course of evolution.
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spelling pubmed-59678342018-06-08 Human microRNAs preferentially target genes with intermediate levels of expression and its formation by mammalian evolution Iwama, Hisakazu Kato, Kiyohito Imachi, Hitomi Murao, Koji Masaki, Tsutomu PLoS One Research Article MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short, endogenous RNAs that post-transcriptionally repress mRNAs. Over the course of evolution, many new miRNAs are known to have emerged and added to the existing miRNA repertoires of drosophilids and vertebrates. Despite the large number of miRNAs in existence, the complementary pairing of only ~7 bases between miRNAs and mRNAs is sufficient to induce repression. Thus, miRNA targeting is so widespread that genes coexpressed with a miRNA have evolved to avoid sites that are targeted by the miRNA. Besides this avoidance, little is known about the preferential modes of miRNA targeting. Therefore, to elucidate miRNA targeting preference and avoidance, we evaluated the bias of the number of miRNA targeting occurrences in relation to expression intensities of miRNAs and their coexpressed target mRNAs by surveying transcriptome data from human organs. We found that miRNAs preferentially target genes with intermediate levels of expression, while avoiding highly expressed ones, and that older miRNAs have greater targeting specificity, suggesting that specificity increases during the course of evolution. Public Library of Science 2018-05-24 /pmc/articles/PMC5967834/ /pubmed/29795674 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198142 Text en © 2018 Iwama et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Iwama, Hisakazu
Kato, Kiyohito
Imachi, Hitomi
Murao, Koji
Masaki, Tsutomu
Human microRNAs preferentially target genes with intermediate levels of expression and its formation by mammalian evolution
title Human microRNAs preferentially target genes with intermediate levels of expression and its formation by mammalian evolution
title_full Human microRNAs preferentially target genes with intermediate levels of expression and its formation by mammalian evolution
title_fullStr Human microRNAs preferentially target genes with intermediate levels of expression and its formation by mammalian evolution
title_full_unstemmed Human microRNAs preferentially target genes with intermediate levels of expression and its formation by mammalian evolution
title_short Human microRNAs preferentially target genes with intermediate levels of expression and its formation by mammalian evolution
title_sort human micrornas preferentially target genes with intermediate levels of expression and its formation by mammalian evolution
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5967834/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29795674
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198142
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