miRNA Analysis

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short, highly conserved small noncoding RNA molecules naturally occurring in the genomes of plants and animals. miRNAs are 17–27 nucleotides long and regulate posttranscriptional mRNA expression, typically by binding to the 3’ untranslated region (3’-UTR) of the complementary mRNA sequence, resulting in translational repression and gene silencing. Studies have shown that thousands of human protein-coding genes are regulated by miRNAs, indicating that miRNAs are “master regulators” of many important biological processes.

Since the discovery of first lin-4 miRNA in C. elegans, miRNAs have been identified in diverse organisms through experimental determination or computational prediction. These are managed through miRBase database which is a public searchable database of all published miRNA sequences and annotation.