a study of neural-related micrornas in the developing amphioxus发展中文昌鱼neural-related小分子核糖核酸的研究.pdfVIP

A study of neural-related microRNAs in the developing amphioxus Candiani et al. Candiani et al. EvoDevo 2011, 2:15 /content/2/1/15 (1 July 2011) Candiani et al. EvoDevo 2011, 2:15 /content/2/1/15 RESEARCH Open Access A study of neural-related microRNAs in the developing amphioxus 1* 1 2 1 1 Simona Candiani , Luca Moronti , Davide De Pietri Tonelli , Greta Garbarino and Mario Pestarino Abstract Background: MicroRNAs are small noncoding RNAs regulating expression of protein coding genes at post- transcriptional level and controlling several biological processes. At present microRNAs have been identified in various metazoans and seem also to be involved in brain development, neuronal differentiation and subtypes specification. An approach to better understand the role of microRNAs in animal gene expression is to determine temporal and tissue-specific expression patterns of microRNAs in different model organisms. Therefore, we have investigated the expression of six neural related microRNAs in amphioxus, an organism having an important phylogenetic position in terms of understanding the origin and evolution of chordates. Results: In amphioxus, all the microRNAs we examined are expressed in specific regions of the CNS, and some of them are correlated with specific cell types. In addition, miR-7, miR-137 and miR-184 are also expressed in endodermal and mesodermal tissues. Several potential targets expressed in the nervous system of amphioxus have been identified by computational prediction and some of them are coexpressed with one or more miRNAs.