title: The role of miRNAs in regulating gene expression networks.
abstract: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are key regulators of gene expression. They are conserved across species, expressed across cell types, and active against a large proportion of the transcriptome. The sequence-complementary mechanism of miRNA activity exploits combinatorial diversity, a property conducive to network-wide regulation of gene expression, and functional evidence supporting this hypothesized systems-level role has steadily begun to accumulate. The emerging models are exciting and will yield deep insight into the regulatory architecture of biology. However, because of the technical challenges facing the network-based study of miRNAs, many gaps remain. Here, we review mammalian miRNAs by describing recent advances in understanding their molecular activity and network-wide function.
authors.affiliation: David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Electronic address: gurtan@mit.edu.
authors.forename: Allan M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Gurtan
authors.forename: Phillip A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Sharp
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D060565:Argonaute Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D015870:Gene Expression; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D006801:Humans; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010641:Phenotype; D011487:Protein Conformation; D034743:RNA-Induced Silencing Complex / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D059467:Transcriptome
chemical_list: D060565:Argonaute Proteins; D035683:MicroRNAs; D034743:RNA-Induced Silencing Complex; D014157:Transcription Factors
keywords: Ago2; Argonaute 2; Dicer; Drosha; EMT; ESC; KO; RISC; RNA-induced silencing complex; TGFβ; UTR; embryonic stem cell; epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition; knockout; let-7; miRNA; microRNA; network; pre-miRNA; precursor miRNA; transforming growth factor beta; untranslated region