MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short (20-24 nt)non-coding RNAs that are involved inpost-transcriptional regulation ofgene expression inmulticellular organisms by affecting both the stability and translation ofmRNAs. miRNAs are transcribed byRNA polymerase II as part of capped andpolyadenylated primary transcripts (pri-miRNAs) that can be either protein-coding or non-coding. The primary transcript is cleaved by theDrosha ribonuclease III enzyme to produce an approximately 70-nt stem-loop precursor miRNA (pre-miRNA), which is further cleaved by thecytoplasmicDicer ribonuclease to generate the mature miRNA andantisense miRNA star (miRNA*) products. The mature miRNA is incorporated into aRNA-induced silencing complex (RISC), which recognizes target mRNAs through imperfect base pairing with the miRNA and most commonly results intranslational inhibition or destabilization of the target mRNA. The RefSeq represents the predicted microRNA stem-loop. [provided by RefSeq, Sep 2009].
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