One miRNA could have several targets, but these targets may not all be regulated by the miRNA in every circumstance. For standard utilization of miRNAs as biological function and to prevent the hindrance of their use as clinical biomarkers and therapeutics. How can a miRNA targets one
target but not another ?. Thanks for your contributions in anticipation
Dear researcher,
Although I only have theoric knowledge on miRNA's, I might help you. As you know, miRNA's usually (but not always) binds to mRNA's 3' UTR (untranslated region) so the first place to look at is this region I think. In this region, one could possibly find complementary sequence of miRNA miRNA in question. For several targets, I think some of targets (or one, if the miRNA primarily regulates one target) could have low mismatch score while others have a higher score. If the miRNA of interest shows affinity to several different mRNA's, maybe a pretreatment step for analyte solution blocks other mRNA's, leaving only posibility to bind miRNA to targeted mRNA.
On the other hand, I'm a biosensor researcher and pretreatment steps are not very welcome in our field, due to their time consuming nature and limitation of mobility and availability of the system. There might be a way to combine pretreatment and measurement steps. Carefully designed capture probes could work. They may "keep busy" other targets and miRNA and interested mRNA binding efficiency increases.
For further questions in theoric, feel free to ask. Good days!
P.S. Coding region of mRNA should be taken into account, by the way.
Hello Fadaka,
The fact that a single miRNA can have an influence on multiple genes and multiple miRNAs can have a combined effect on a single gene, post-transcriptional is a very important aspect of research that is being looked into these days.
However, even with our limited knowledge of miRNAs, we feel, that miRNAs have a very strong ancestral origin, and this knowledge will be useful in understanding the effect it can have on gene expression. The origin of diseases and the progression is predominatnly based on gene and environment interactions. If one were to consider that the polymorphs are supposed to have been a a natural selection process, the environmental conditions are the parameters on which gene's expression is based.
We have very recently published this hypothesis. If you have the time, kindly read it. I am sure it will be of much help to you in understanding these amazing small nucleotides.
Warm regards,
Venk
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