Searching the Resource Information Network

Our searching services are busy right now. Please try again later

  • Register
X
Forgot Password

If you have forgotten your password you can enter your email here and get a temporary password sent to your email.

X

Leaving Community

Are you sure you want to leave this community? Leaving the community will revoke any permissions you have been granted in this community.

No
Yes

MicroRNA MIMIC binding sites: Minor flanking nucleotide alterations can strongly impact MIMIC silencing efficacy in Arabidopsis.

Gigi Wong | Maria Alonso-Peral | Bingjun Li | Junyan Li | Anthony A Millar
Plant direct | 2018

In plants, microRNA (miRNA) target MIMICs (MIMs) have been widely used to inhibit miRNA function. They are based on the Arabidopsis INSENSITIVE TO PHOSPATE STARVATION 1 (IPS1) gene that corresponds to a non-coding RNA containing a miR399 binding site that can be modified to sequester and inhibit any miRNA of interest. However, the efficacy of miRNA inhibition of these different MIMs can vary greatly. Using MIMs that have strong efficacy (MIM159) and poor efficacy (MIM165), we investigate the underlying cause of this variation. Firstly, sequence alignments of IPS1 homologs from the Brassicaceae identified a highly conserved sequence immediately downstream of the miRNA binding site. Mutating this sequence in the context of the MIM159 attenuates its strong efficacy. This conserved flanking region contains a predicted stem-loop structure that is also predicted to be present in most modified MIMs that appear to have a strong efficacy, but not in MIM165 that has a poor efficacy. Restoring this predicted stem-loop in MIM165 via mutation of only three or five nucleotides within the conserved flanking region resulted in MIM165 variants that have very strong efficacies of miRNA inhibition. However, specifically mutating this predicted stem-loop in the MIM159 context failed to significantly reduce efficacy, and additional mutations to restore this predicted stem-loop weakened efficacy further. Although this shows there is no simple correlation between this predicted stem-loop and efficacy, these results add to the growing evidence that the sequence context of miRNA binding sites is important, and that minor nucleotide substitutions to flanking sequences of miRNA binding sites can strongly enhance or attenuate the miRNA-target interaction.

Pubmed ID: 31245688

Research resources used in this publication

None found

Antibodies used in this publication

None found

Associated grants

None

Publication data is provided by the National Library of Medicine ® and PubMed ®. Data is retrieved from PubMed ® on a weekly schedule. For terms and conditions see the National Library of Medicine Terms and Conditions.

This is a list of tools and resources that we have found mentioned in this publication.


Promega (tool)

RRID:SCR_006724

An Antibody supplier

View all literature mentions

Bioinformatic Harvester IV (beta) at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (tool)

RRID:SCR_008017

Harvester is a Web-based tool that bulk-collects bioinformatic data on human proteins from various databases and prediction servers. It is a meta search engine for gene and protein information. It searches 16 major databases and prediction servers and combines the results on pregenerated HTML pages. In this way Harvester can provide comprehensive gene-protein information from different servers in a convenient and fast manner. As full text meta search engine, similar to Google trade mark, Harvester allows screening of the whole genome proteome for current protein functions and predictions in a few seconds. With Harvester it is now possible to compare and check the quality of different database entries and prediction algorithms on a single page. Sponsors: This work has been supported by the BMBF with grants 01GR0101 and 01KW0013.

View all literature mentions

Washington University Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (tool)

RRID:SCR_008285

It is used to compare a novel sequence with those contained in nucleotide and protein databases by aligning the novel sequence with previously characterized genes.

View all literature mentions

QIAGEN (tool)

RRID:SCR_008539

A commercial organization which provides assay technologies to isolate DNA, RNA, and proteins from any biological sample. Assay technologies are then used to make specific target biomolecules, such as the DNA of a specific virus, visible for subsequent analysis.

View all literature mentions

MAFFT (tool)

RRID:SCR_011811

Software package as multiple alignment program for amino acid or nucleotide sequences. Can align up to 500 sequences or maximum file size of 1 MB. First version of MAFFT used algorithm based on progressive alignment, in which sequences were clustered with help of Fast Fourier Transform. Subsequent versions have added other algorithms and modes of operation, including options for faster alignment of large numbers of sequences, higher accuracy alignments, alignment of non-coding RNA sequences, and addition of new sequences to existing alignments.

View all literature mentions