MicroRNA

Yale Scientists Find MicroRNA Regulates Ras Cancer Gene

Research in the laboratory of Assistant Professor Frank J. Slack at Yale University has identified a new way that a familiar gene is regulated in lung cancer, presenting new possibilities for diagnosis and treatment. The work is reported in March issues of the journals Cell and Developmental Cell. The oncogene Ras is out of control in about 20 percent of cancers where it is over-expressed...

Cooperation is key—a new way of looking at MicroRNA and how it controls gene expression

A group of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute is reporting a discovery that sheds light on an area of research fundamental to everything from the normal processes that govern the everyday life of human cells to the aberrant mechanisms that underlie many diseases, including cancer and septic shock. The discovery concerns tiny fragments of RNA known as microRNA and their relations...

NYU, Rockefeller researchers find complexity of regulation by microRNA genes

Collaborating researchers at New York University and Rockefeller University have discovered that microRNA genes, which have recently been shown to have key roles in gene regulation, can team up and regulate target genes in mammals. MicroRNAs are a recently discovered large class of regulatory, non-coding genes, which bind to partially complementary sites in target messenger RNA to regulate their...

MicroRNAs play a big part in gene regulation - and evolution

Regulating when and where certain proteins are made is crucial to the normal functioning of living things. To make proteins, information from DNA is transcribed into RNA molecules and then translated into the amino acids building blocks of proteins. But not all genes code for proteins--some make RNA molecules called microRNAs. These small RNA molecules interfere with--and therefore control--the p...

Molecular steps involved in the creation of gene-silencing microRNAs identified

First discovered only a few brief years ago, microRNAs are small, remarkably powerful molecules that appear to play a pivotal role in gene silencing, one of the body's main strategies for regulating its genome. A scant 22 nucleotides in length, miRNAs appear to work by binding to and somehow interfering with messenger RNA, itself responsible for translating genes into proteins. But how do...

Scientists find microRNAs regulate plant development

The plant hormone indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), commonly referred to as auxin, plays a major role in regulating plant growth and development. Auxin influences development by affecting the expression of numerous genes that control the processes of cell division and cell expansion in specific plant tissues at specific stages during the plant life cycle - e.g. for leaves, roots, and floral organs to d...

MicroRNA tweaks protein that controls early heart development

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered how a small molecule of RNA called microRNA ?a chemical cousin of DNA ?helps fine tune the production of a key protein involved in the early development of heart muscle. The findings, available in the online edition of the journal Nature, may aid scientists in their understanding of how a progenitor cell, or stem cell, decides...

MicroRNAs have shaped the evolution of the majority of mammalian genes

RNA continues to shed its reputation as DNA's faithful sidekick. Now, researchers in the lab of Whitehead Institute Member David Bartel have found that a class of small RNAs called microRNAs influence the evolution of genes far more widely than previous research had indicated. "MicroRNAs are affecting the majority of protein-coding genes, either at a functional level or an evolutionary lev...

MicroRNA gene that regulates lifespan found by Yale scientists

Genes that control the timing of organ formation during development also control timing of aging and death, and provide evidence of a biological timing mechanism for aging, Yale researchers report in the journal Science. "Although there is a large variation in lifespan from species to species, there are genetic aspects to the processes of development and aging," said <a href="http://www.y...

Role of microRNA identified in thyroid cancer

The presence of only five tiny strands of RNA is enough to clearly distinguish cancerous thyroid tissue from otherwise normal tissue, scientists say. The findings provide more evidence that an emerging set of RNA genes called microRNA (miRNA) is a powerful regulatory force in the development of cancer and other diseases. The study is published online in the Dec. 19 Proceedings of the Nati...

Twin molecular scissors link creation of microRNAs with gene-silencing

One of the body's primary strategies for regulating its genome is a kind of targeted gene silencing orchestrated by small molecules called microRNAs, or miRNAs. First observed only a few years ago, these molecules appear to inactivate messenger RNA, itself responsible for translating genes into proteins. Scientists have been eager to know more about miRNAs, clearly important players on the geneti...

MicroRNA may have fail-safe role in limb development

A tiny strand of molecules plays a role in how our arms and legs develop and grow - a finding that sheds light on perplexing bits of material once dismissed as genetic "junk," say scientists at the University of Florida and Harvard University. The research, available today in the online edition of Nature, may help scientists understand whether bits of RNA called microRNAs act as protective...

Single microRNA causes cancer in transgenic mouse

Scientists in the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center say that just one, single, malfunctioning microRNA is sufficient to cause cancer in mice. The discovery offers new insight into the development of some forms of leukemia and lymphoma and at the same time underscores the powerful role that these tiny snippets of non-coding RNA play in cell signaling pathways active in carcinogenes...

Activation of microRNA inhibits cancer gene in human cancer cells

Scientists report that tumor cells display a dramatic reduction of cancer-causing genes when a newly discovered method is used to activate the expression of protective microRNAs in the cancer cell genome. The research, published in the June issue of Cancer Cell, demonstrates that agents known to regulate gene expression can also impact regulatory RNAs that may function as tumor suppressors in nor...

Pair of microRNA molecules controls major oncogene in most common leukemia

Researchers at Ohio State University have discovered that two microRNA (miRNA) molecules help control the oncogene responsible for a dangerous form of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL), the most common human leukemia in the world. Their findings, published in the December 15 issue of Cancer Research, demonstrate that miRNAs are emerging as powerful regulators of gene expression...

Unicellular microRNA discovery

In the May 15th issue of Genes & Development, an international collaboration of researchers, led by Dr. Yijun Qi (National Institute of Biological Sciences, China), report on their discovery of microRNAs in the unicellular green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. This is the first finding of microRNAs in a unicellular organism. “The finding changes the dogma that miRNAs only exist in m...

MicroRNAs can be tumor suppressors

University of Virginia researchers have discovered that microRNAs, a form of genetic material, can function as tumor suppressors in laboratory studies. In the May 1 issue of Genes & Development, UVa researchers Drs. Yong Sun Lee and Anindya Dutta have shown that microRNAs can suppress the overexpression of a gene called HMGA2. This gene is related to creation of fatty tissue and certa...

MicroRNA helps prevent tumors

A microRNA directly regulates a gene implicated in human cancers, researchers from Whitehead Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology report in the February 22nd online issue of Science....

Xie Lab demonstrates the role of microRNA pathway

Ting Xie, Ph.D., Associate Investigator, and Zhigang Jin, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Xie Lab, have published results showing that the microRNA pathway is essential for controlling self-renewal of germline stem cells and somatic stem cells in the Drosophila ovary. The paper, "Dcr-1 Maintains Drosophila Ovarian Stem Cells," was published on the Web site of Current Biolo...

MicroRNAs as tumor suppressors

In the May 1st issue of G&D, Drs. Yong Sun Lee and Anindya Dutta (UVA) reveal that microRNAs can function as tumor suppressors in vitro. "Overexpression of HMGA2 is an important feature of many medically important tumors like uterine fibroids,?explains Dr. Dutta. “It is very exciting to realize that microRNAs have an important role in suppressing the overexpression of HMGA2, and so ma...