Preferential regulation of stably expressed genes in the human genome suggests a widespread expression buffering role of microRNAs

BMC Genomics

Proceedings

Zhaolei Zhang¹  M James C Crabbe²  Dong Dong³  Zhen Yang⁴  Yang Zhong⁵  Li Wang⁶ 

[1] Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, University of Toronto, 160 College Street, M5S 1A8, Toronto, ON, Canada;Institute of Biomedical and Environmental Science & Technology, Faculty of Creative Arts, Technologies and Science, University of Bedfordshire, LU1 3JU, Luton, UK;Institute of Molecular Ecology and Evolution, iAIR, East China Normal University, 200062, Shanghai, China;School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, 200433, Shanghai, China;School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, 200433, Shanghai, China;Institute of Biodiversity Science and Geobiology, Tibet University, 850000, Lhasa, China;Shanghai Center for Bioinformation Technology, 200235, Shanghai, China;

关键词: miRNA Target;    miRNA Regulation;    miRNA Target Gene;    miRNA Target Site;    Predict miRNA Target;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2164-13-S7-S14

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundMicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small noncoding RNAs that regulate the target gene expression at post-transcriptional level. They are widely involved in biological processes, such as embryonic development, cell division, differentiation, and apoptosis. Evidence suggests that miRNAs can constrain the variation of their target to buffer the fluctuation of expression. However, whether this effect can act on the genome-wide expression remains controversial.ResultsIn this study, we comprehensively explored the stably expressed genes (SE genes) and fluctuant genes (FL genes) in the human genome by a meta-analysis of large scale microarray data. We found that these genes have distinct function distributions. miRNA targets are shown to be significantly enriched in SE genes by using propensity analysis of miRNA regulation, supporting the hypothesis that miRNAs can buffer whole genome expression fluctuation. The expression-buffering effect of miRNA is independent of the target site number within the 3'-untranslated region. In addition, we found that gene expression fluctuation is positively correlated with the number of transcription factor binding sites in the promoter region, which suggests that coordination between transcription factors and miRNAs leads to balanced responses to external perturbations.ConclusionsOur study confirmed that the genetic buffering roles of miRNAs can act on genome expression fluctuation and provides insights into how miRNAs and transcription factors coordinate to cope with external perturbation.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Yang et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.