Preferential regulation of miRNA targets by environmental chemicals in the human genome

BMC Genomics

Research Article

Yijiang Song¹  Xudong Wu² 

[1] Institute of Genomic Medicine, Wenzhou Medical College, 325035, Wenzhou, China;Key laboratory of Photosynthesis and Environmental Molecular Physiology, the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100093, Beijing, China;Institute of Genomic Medicine, Wenzhou Medical College, 325035, Wenzhou, China;State key laboratory of Molecular Reaction Dynamics, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 116023, Dalian, China;

关键词: miRNA Target;    Association Network;    Diesel Exhaust Particle;    Comparative Toxicogenomics Database;    Collection Bias;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2164-12-244

 received in 2010-11-01, accepted in 2011-05-18,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundmicroRNAs (miRNAs) represent a class of small (typically 22 nucleotides in length) non-coding RNAs that can degrade their target mRNAs or block their translation. Recent disease research showed the exposure to some environmental chemicals (ECs) can regulate the expression patterns of miRNAs, which raises the intriguing question of how miRNAs and their targets cope with the exposure to ECs throughout the genome.ResultsIn this study, we comprehensively analyzed the properties of genes regulated by ECs (EC-genes) and found miRNA targets were significantly enriched among the EC-genes. Compared with the non-miRNA-targets, miRNA targets were roughly twice as likely to be EC-genes. By investigating the collection methods and other properties of the EC-genes, we demonstrated that the enrichment of miRNA targets was not attributed to either the potential collection bias of EC-genes, the presence of paralogs, longer 3'UTRs or more conserved 3'UTRs. Finally, we identified 1,842 significant concurrent interactions between 407 miRNAs and 497 ECs. This association network of miRNAs-ECs was highly modular and could be separated into 14 interconnected modules. In each module, miRNAs and ECs were closely connected, providing a good method to design accurate miRNA markers for ECs in toxicology research.ConclusionsOur analyses indicated that miRNAs and their targets played important roles in cellular responses to ECs. Association analyses of miRNAs and ECs will help to broaden the understanding of the pathogenesis of such chemical components.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Wu and Song; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011