Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2007:361:311-26.
doi: 10.1385/1-59745-208-4:311.

Regulatory RNAs: future perspectives in diagnosis, prognosis, and individualized therapy

Marjorie P Perron  1 , Vincent Boissonneault, Lise-Andrée Gobeil, Dominique L Ouellet, Patrick Provost
Affiliations
Review

Regulatory RNAs: future perspectives in diagnosis, prognosis, and individualized therapy

Marjorie P Perron et al. Methods Mol Biol. 2007.

Abstract

With potentially up to 1000 microRNAs (miRNAs) present in the human genome, altogether regulating the expression of thousands of genes, one can anticipate that miRNAs will play a significant role in health and disease. Deregulated protein expression induced by a dysfunctional miRNA-based regulatory system is thus expected to lead to the development of serious, if not lethal, genetic diseases. A relationship among miRNAs, Dicer, and cancer has recently been suggested. Further investigations will help establish specific causal links between dysfunctional miRNAs and diseases. miRNAs of foreign origin, e.g., viruses, may also be used as specific markers of viral infections. In these cases, miRNA expression profiles could represent a powerful diagnostic tool. Regulatory RNAs may also have therapeutic applications, by which disease-causing genes or viral miRNAs could be neutralized, or functional miRNAs be restored. Will bedside miRNA expression profiling eventually assist physicians in providing patients with accurate diagnosis, personalized therapy, and treatment outcome?

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Importance of miRNA-regulated gene expression in humans. 1) For more than 30% of the genes, miRNAs control the expression of their encoded proteins through recognition of their corresponding mRNAs. 2) miRNA overexpression may accentuate the degree of translation inhibition mediated by miRNAs. 3) Whereas loss of miRNA control, induced by a dysfunctional miRNA or miRNA-binding site, may lead to the overexpression of a specific protein and provoke the development of a disease. 4) miRNAs or siRNAs can also originate from viruses and modulate host gene expression, which may result in facilitation of viral replication. Dysfunction of a protein involved in miRNA biosynthesis or function may affect miRNA expression globally and have more serious, if not lethal, consequences.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic illustration of the envisioned use of miRNA expression monitoring in personalizing diagnosis and medical treatment.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Elbashir SM, Harborth J, Lendeckel W, Yalcin A, Weber K, Tuschl T. Duplexes of 21-nucleotide RNAs mediate RNA interference in cultured mammalian cells. Nature. 2001;411:494–498. - PubMed
    1. Elbashir SM, Lendeckel W, Tuschl T. RNA interference is mediated by 21- and 22-nucleotide RNAs. Genes Dev. 2001;15:188–200. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Chiu YL, Rana TM. siRNA function in RNAi: a chemical modification analysis. Rna. 2003;9:1034–1048. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lee Y, Jeon K, Lee JT, Kim S, Kim VN. MicroRNA maturation: stepwise processing and subcellular localization. Embo J. 2002;21:4663–4670. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Rodriguez A, Griffiths-Jones S, Ashurst JL, Bradley A. Identification of mammalian microRNA host genes and transcription units. Genome Res. 2004;14:1902–1910. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms