Specific effects of microRNAs on the plant transcriptome.
Most plant microRNAs (miRNAs) have perfect or near-perfect complementarity with their targets. This is consistent with their primary mode of action being cleavage of target mRNAs, similar to that induced by perfectly complementary small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). However, there are natural targets with up to five mismatches. Furthermore, artificial siRNAs can have substantial effects on so-called off-targets, to which they have only limited complementarity. By analyzing the transcriptome of plants overexpressing different miRNAs, we have deduced a set of empirical parameters for target recognition. Compared to artificial siRNAs, authentic plant miRNAs appear to have much higher specificity, which may reflect their coevolution with the remainder of the transcriptome. We also demonstrate that miR172, previously thought to act primarily by translational repression, can efficiently guide mRNA cleavage, although the effects on steady-state levels of target transcripts are obscured by strong feedback regulation. This finding unifies the view of plant miRNA action.
Schwab
Rebecca
R
Department of Molecular Biology, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
Palatnik
Javier F
JF
Riester
Markus
M
Schommer
Carla
C
Schmid
Markus
M
Weigel
Detlef
D
D020029:Base Pairing; D001483:Base Sequence; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D010641:Phenotype; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified; D018749:RNA, Plant / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
D035683:MicroRNAs; D010940:Plant Proteins; D018749:RNA, Plant