Nature Structural & Molecular Biology
- 13, 849 - 851 (2006)
Published online: 20 August 2006; | doi:10.1038/nsmb1138
Perfect seed pairing is not a generally reliable predictor for miRNA-target interactions
Dominic Didiano & Oliver Hobert
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University Medical Center, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 701 W. 168th Street, New York, New York 10032, USA.
Correspondence should be addressed to Oliver Hobert or38@columbia.edu
We use Caenorhabditis elegans to test proposed general rules for microRNA (miRNA)-target interactions. We show that GU base pairing is tolerated in the 'seed' region of the lsy-6 miRNA interaction with its in vivo target cog-1, and that 6- to 8-base-pair perfect seed pairing is not a generally reliable predictor for an interaction of lsy-6 with a 3' untranslated region (UTR). Rather, lsy-6 can functionally interact with its target site only in specific 3' UTR contexts. Our findings illustrate the difficulty of establishing generalizable rules of miRNA-target interactions.
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U base pairing is tolerated in the 'seed' region of the lsy-6 miRNA interaction with its in vivo target cog-1, and that 6- to 8-base-pair perfect seed pairing is not a generally reliable predictor for an interaction of lsy-6 with a 3' untranslated region (UTR). Rather, lsy-6 can functionally interact with its target site only in specific 3' UTR contexts. Our findings illustrate the difficulty of establishing generalizable rules of miRNA-target interactions.
