Lin-4 microRNA precursor

Lin-4 is a microRNA (miRNA) that was identified from a study of developmental timing in "C. elegans" [cite journal | last = Rougvie | first = AE | year = 2001 | title = Control of developmental timing in animals | journal = Nat Rev Genet | volume = 2 | pages = 690–701 | pmid = 11533718 | doi = 10.1038/35088566] , and was later shown to be part of a much larger class of non-coding RNAs termed miRNAs [cite journal | last = Ambros | first = V | year = 2001 | title = microRNAs: tiny regulators with great potential | journal = Cell | volume = 107 | pages = 823–826 | pmid = 11779458 | doi = 10.1016/S0092-8674(01)00616-X] . lin-4 is found on chromosome II in "C. elegans" and is complementary to sequences in the 3' untranslated region (UTR) of lin-14 mRNA. lin-4 acts to developmentally repress the accumulation of lin-14 proteincite journal | author = Olsen PH, Ambros V | title = The lin-4 regulatory RNA controls developmental timing in Caenorhabditis elegans by blocking LIN-14 protein synthesis after the initiation of translation | journal = Dev. Biol. | volume = 216 | issue = 2 | pages = 671–80 | year = 1999 | pmid = 10642801 | doi = 10.1006/dbio.1999.9523 | issn = ] . lin-4 also targets lin-28 and reduces protein expressioncite journal | author = Bagga S, Bracht J, Hunter S, "et al" | title = Regulation by let-7 and lin-4 miRNAs results in target mRNA degradation | journal = Cell | volume = 122 | issue = 4 | pages = 553–63 | year = 2005 | pmid = 16122423 | doi = 10.1016/j.cell.2005.07.031 | issn = ] . miRNAs are transcribed as ~70 nucleotide precursors and subsequently processed by the Dicer enzyme to give a ~22 nucleotide product. The extents of the hairpin precursors are not generally known and are estimated based on hairpin prediction. The products are thought to have regulatory roles through complementarity to mRNA. The involvement of Dicer in miRNA processing suggests a relationship with the phenomenon of RNA interference.

References

External links

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* [http://microrna.sanger.ac.uk/cgi-bin/sequences/mirna_entry.pl?acc=MI0000002 MirBase entry for lin-4]