This article has not been peer reviewed.

Deposited research article

Global analysis of microRNA target gene expression reveals the potential roles of microRNAs in maintaining tissue identity

Zhenbao Yu*, Zhaofeng Jian, Shi-Hsiang Shen, Enrico Purisima and Edwin Wang*

Author Affiliations

Biotechnology Research Institute, National Research Council of Canada, Montréal, Québec, H4P 2R2, Canada

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Genome Biology 2005, 6:P14 doi:10.1186/gb-2005-6-13-p14


This was the first version of this article to be made available publicly. This article was submitted to Genome Biology for peer review.

Published: 19 December 2005

Abstract

Background

MicroRNAs are non-coding small RNAs of ~22 nucleotides that regulate the gene expression by base-paring with target mRNAs, leading to mRNA cleavage or translational repression. It is currently estimated that microRNAs account for ~ 1% of predicted genes in higher eukaryotic genomes and that up to 30% of genes might be regulated by microRNAs. However, only very few microRNAs have been functionally characterized and the general functions of microRNAs are not globally studied.

Results

We systematically analyzed the expression patterns of microRNA targets using several public microarray profiles and found that the expression levels of microRNA targets are significantly lower in all mouse and Drosophila tissues than in the embryos and that microRNA targets are dramatically excluded from the tissue-specifically expressed gene groups.

Conclusions

These results strongly suggest that the global functions of microRNAs are largely involved in driving tissue differentiation and maintaining tissue identity rather than in tissue-specific physiological functions. In addition, these findings imply that disruption of microRNA functions might cause delineation of differentiated cells, a crucial step towards carcinogenesis.