TY - JOUR
T1 - Evidence for post-transcriptional regulation of clustered microRNAs in Drosophila
AU - Ryazansky, S.S.
AU - Gvozdev, V.A.
AU - Berezikov, E.
N1 - Reporting year: 2011
Metis note: 3150300;
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - BACKGROUND: MicroRNAs (miRNA) are short 21-23nt RNAs capable of inhibiting translation of complementary target messenger RNAs. Almost half of D. melanogaster miRNA genes are grouped in genomic clusters. RESULTS: The peculiarities of the expression of clustered miRNAs were studied using publicly available libraries of sequenced small RNAs from different Drosophila tissues. We have shown that although miRNAs from almost all clusters have similar tissue expression profiles (coordinated clusters), some clusters contain miRNAs with uncoordinated expression profiles. The predicted transcription start sites (TSSs) of such clusters are located upstream of the first miRNA, but no TSSs are found within the clusters. The expression profiles of miR and miR* sequences in uncoordinated clustered miRNAs do not correlate while their profiles from the coordinated clustered miRNAs are similar. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of exclusively upstream promoters in miRNA clusters containing uncoordinated miRNAs means that the clusters are transcribed as single transcription units. The difference of tissue expression profiles of uncoordinated miRNAs and the corresponding miRs* suggests a post-transcriptional regulation of their processing or stability. [KEYWORDS: Animals, Drosophila/ genetics, Gene Expression Profiling, MicroRNAs/ genetics/ metabolism, Multigene Family, Promoter Regions, Genetic, RNA Processing, Post-Transcriptional, Transcription Initiation Site]
AB - BACKGROUND: MicroRNAs (miRNA) are short 21-23nt RNAs capable of inhibiting translation of complementary target messenger RNAs. Almost half of D. melanogaster miRNA genes are grouped in genomic clusters. RESULTS: The peculiarities of the expression of clustered miRNAs were studied using publicly available libraries of sequenced small RNAs from different Drosophila tissues. We have shown that although miRNAs from almost all clusters have similar tissue expression profiles (coordinated clusters), some clusters contain miRNAs with uncoordinated expression profiles. The predicted transcription start sites (TSSs) of such clusters are located upstream of the first miRNA, but no TSSs are found within the clusters. The expression profiles of miR and miR* sequences in uncoordinated clustered miRNAs do not correlate while their profiles from the coordinated clustered miRNAs are similar. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of exclusively upstream promoters in miRNA clusters containing uncoordinated miRNAs means that the clusters are transcribed as single transcription units. The difference of tissue expression profiles of uncoordinated miRNAs and the corresponding miRs* suggests a post-transcriptional regulation of their processing or stability. [KEYWORDS: Animals, Drosophila/ genetics, Gene Expression Profiling, MicroRNAs/ genetics/ metabolism, Multigene Family, Promoter Regions, Genetic, RNA Processing, Post-Transcriptional, Transcription Initiation Site]
U2 - 10.1186/1471-2164-12-371
DO - 10.1186/1471-2164-12-371
M3 - Article
SN - 1471-2164
VL - 12
SP - 371
JO - BMC Genomics
JF - BMC Genomics
ER -