Hi!

Have a look here, where we summarize the progress in the field.

Bastian

Article A Uniform System for the Annotation of Vertebrate microRNA G...

Chapter microRNA Discovery and Expression Analysis in Animals

Hi there

Following the miRBase criteria, a real miRNA should be generated by the expression of pri-miRNA transcripts that will produce the characteristic hairpin-loop structure in the corresponding precursor-miRNA. After that you must consider the detection of the mature species in next generation sequencing experiments (or others).

There are many examples of miRNA-like sequences, many of them coming from the degradation of other RNAs, like tRNAs.

Hope it helps. Best

Paco

Hi!

Have a look here, where we summarize the progress in the field.

Bastian

Article A Uniform System for the Annotation of Vertebrate microRNA G...

Chapter microRNA Discovery and Expression Analysis in Animals

Pre miRNAs should form stable stem-loop structure with high MFEI (Minimum Folding free Energy Index) value.

Hi Muhammad,

The following points may be helpful:

1) it should be detected in small RNA sequencing data

2) it should be potentially derived from a characteristic hairpin miRNA precursor (bioinformatics analyses)

3) it should be downregulated when Dicer is knocked out/down.

4) it should be upregulated when Dicer is overexpressed;

5) it should be detected in AGO-IP experiments on your cells

Hope this helps.

Sharif

I think it is reasonable that the new (evolutionarily young) miRNAs, which are dependent on Dicer/Drosha/AGO processing, are included into the real miRNA sets, despite that they disappeared quickly in the course of evolution and could not be integrated into transcriptional network. See the following references for further information.

The birth and death of microRNA genes in Drosophila

Article The birth and death of microRNA genes in

New MicroRNAs in Drosophila—Birth, Death and Cycles of Adaptive Evolution

Article New MicroRNAs in Drosophila—Birth, Death and Cycles of Adapt...