What is it about?

The microRNAs (miRNA) are small non-coding RNAs which play an important role in gene regulation and involved in several biological functions. Studies have shown that there are several hundreds of them across (human) genome. Ane one miRNA may be involved in several genes and inturn several miRNAs may target a gene. This paper investigates structural and functional similarites of gamut of miRNA repertoire. Statistical analysis of the data base of mirRNA showed that the length of miRNAs follow normal distribution and they get clustered into groups based on on their structure and function. The network analysis of their relationship with the target genes reveal complexity of its role in gene regulation. A comparison of length of the miRNA across the selected species reveals it is evolutionarly conserved.

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Why is it important?

The results reveal that several of the miRNAs show clustering based on their structure and function. The length of miRNAs are evolutionarily conserved across species.

Perspectives

This is perhaps among the very few publications to investigate the miRNA data base during the early years of its discovery to investigate the structure, function similarities and evolutionary conservation of its lenght.

Prof. (Retd.) VASULU T
Indian Statistical Institute

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: A Statistical Analysis of MicroRNA: Classification, Identification and Conservation Based on Structure and Function, January 2015, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-17329-0_13.
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