The miR-17 microRNA precursor family are a group of related small

non-coding RNA A non-coding RNA (ncRNA) is a functional RNA molecule that is not translated into a protein. The DNA sequence from which a functional non-coding RNA is transcribed is often called an RNA gene. Abundant and functionally important types of non-c ...

genes called

microRNA MicroRNA (miRNA) are small, single-stranded, non-coding RNA molecules containing 21 to 23 nucleotides. Found in plants, animals and some viruses, miRNAs are involved in RNA silencing and post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. miRN ...

s that regulate

gene expression Gene expression is the process by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product that enables it to produce end products, protein or non-coding RNA, and ultimately affect a phenotype, as the final effect. The ...

. The microRNA precursor miR-17 family, includes miR-20a/b, miR-93, and miR-106a/b. With the exception of miR-93, these microRNAs are produced from several microRNA gene clusters, which apparently arose from a series of ancient evolutionary genetic duplication events, and also include members of the miR-19, and miR-25 families. These clusters are transcribed as long non-coding RNA transcripts that are processed to form ~70

nucleotide Nucleotides are organic molecules consisting of a nucleoside and a phosphate. They serve as monomeric units of the nucleic acid polymers – deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), both of which are essential biomolecules wi ...

microRNA precursors, that are subsequently processed by the

Dicer Dicer, also known as endoribonuclease Dicer or helicase with RNase motif, is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the gene. Being part of the RNase III family, Dicer cleaves double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) and pre-microRNA (pre-miRNA) into short d ...

enzyme to give a ~22

products. The mature microRNA products are thought to regulate expression levels of other genes through complementarity to the

3' UTR In molecular genetics, the three prime untranslated region (3′-UTR) is the section of messenger RNA (mRNA) that immediately follows the translation termination codon. The 3′-UTR often contains regulatory regions that post-transcriptionally ...

of specific target

messenger RNA In molecular biology, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is a single-stranded molecule of RNA that corresponds to the genetic sequence of a gene, and is read by a ribosome in the process of synthesizing a protein. mRNA is created during the p ...

. The

paralogous Sequence homology is the biological homology between DNA, RNA, or protein sequences, defined in terms of shared ancestry in the evolutionary history of life. Two segments of DNA can have shared ancestry because of three phenomena: either a sp ...

miRNA gene clusters that give rise to miR-17 family microRNAs (miR-17~92, miR-106a~363, and miR-106b~25) have been implicated in a wide variety of malignancies and are sometimes referred to as

oncomir An oncomir (also oncomiR) is a microRNA (miRNA) that is associated with cancer. MicroRNAs are short RNA molecules about 22 nucleotides in length. Essentially, miRNAs specifically target certain messenger RNAs (mRNAs) to prevent them from coding fo ...

s. The oncogenic potential of these non-protein encoding genes was first identified in mouse viral tumorigenesis screens. In humans, the activating mutations of miR-17~92 have been identified in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, whereas the miRNA constituents of the clusters are overexpressed in a multiple cancer types. High level expression of miR-17 family members induces cell proliferation, whereas deletion of the miR-17~92 cluster, in mice, is lethal and causes lung and lymphoid cell developmental defects. In addition, in the nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell line, miR-20a and miR-20b has been shown to target the 3’ UTR of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and repress the expression of VEGF, which is an important angiogenic factor. miR-20a detection in human faeces could be a non-invasive screening marker for colorectal cancer.

References

External links

* {{miRNA precursor families MicroRNA MicroRNA precursor families

References

Further reading

External links