Biology:MIR3648

Generic protein structure example

MicroRNA 3648 is a microRNA that in humans is produced by MIR3648 gene. This gene was recently shown to be specific to humans by Nathan H. Lents and colleagues.

Function

microRNAs (miRNAs) are short (20-24 nt) non-coding RNAs that are involved in post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in multicellular organisms by affecting both the stability and translation of mRNAs. miRNAs are transcribed by RNA polymerase II as part of capped and polyadenylated primary transcripts (pri-miRNAs) that can be either protein-coding or non-coding. The primary transcript is cleaved by the Drosha ribonuclease III enzyme to produce an approximately 70-nt stem-loop precursor miRNA (pre-miRNA), which is further cleaved by the cytoplasmic Dicer ribonuclease to generate the mature miRNA and antisense miRNA star (miRNA*) products. The mature miRNA is incorporated into a RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC), which recognizes target mRNAs through imperfect base pairing with the miRNA and most commonly results in translational inhibition or destabilization of the target mRNA. The RefSeq represents the predicted microRNA stem-loop. [provided by RefSeq, Sep 2009].

Further reading

• "Discovery of microRNAs and other small RNAs in solid tumors". Nucleic Acids Research 38 (18): 6234–6246. October 2010. doi:10.1093/nar/gkq376. PMID 20483914. 

This article incorporates text from the United States National Library of Medicine, which is in the public domain.