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MicroRNAs and the Translation Function
Submitted by Paul on Wed, 2006-12-13 03:31.
An article in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (Evidence that microRNAs are associated with translating messenger RNAs in human cells) - 13, 1102 - 1107 (2006) indicates evidence of an important regulatory function for miRNAs.
According to the authors this gene regulation would be post-transcriptional and would occur through binding the 3' untranslated regions of mRNAs. Researchers used HeLa cells to gather supporting evidence. Messenger RNA (mRNA) contains information that can enable the synthesis of proteins and results from the transcription of DNA. As the report states:
"Several lines of evidence indicate that most of these mRNAs, including a known miRNA-regulated target (KRAS mRNA), are actively being translated."