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Published online 30 July 2008 | Nature 454, 562 (2008) | doi:10.1038/454562b
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Thousands of proteins affected by miRNAs
Far from being junk, these snippets of the genome exert wide-ranging influence.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) subtly influence a vast number of proteins involved in most key biological processes, according to the first large-scale analyses of how these small pieces of noncoding RNA affect proteins (M. Selbach et al.
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These papers raise more questions than it answers. As we have little knowledge of how most of the miRNAs are controlled at their transcription levels in a tissue specific manner, the data gleaned from exogenous overexpression of miRNAs might have little value in knowing the real workings, the spectrum of affected proteins, of miRNAs.
These papers are proof of correlation which link the overexpression of single miRNA and its influence on many potential mRNA targets. What seems to be the most interesting is which factors might contribute to selection defined transcript from among available mRNAs? -cellular stress or cell cycle? Moreover, how might the interaction between miRNA and many transcripts be regulated? -differences in affinity and accessibility?