A simple method for incorporating dynamic effects of intronic miRNA mediated regulation

Intronic miRNA mediated gene expression regulation controls protein crowding inside the cell

Gene regulatory effects of microRNAs at a posttranscriptional level have been established over the last decade. In this study, we analyze the interaction networks of mRNA translation regulation through intronic miRNA, under various tissue-specific cellular contexts, taking into account the thermodynamic affinity, chemical kinetics, co-localization, concentration levels, network parameters and the presence of competitive interactors. This database, and analysis has been made available through an open-access web-server, miRiam, to promote further exploration. Here we report that expression of genes involved in Apoptosis Processes, Immune System Processes, Translation Regulator Activities, and Molecular Transport Activities within the cell are predominately regulated by miRNA mediation. Our findings further indicate that this regulatory effect has a profound effect in controlling protein crowding inside the cell. A miRNA mediated gene expression regulation serves as a temporal regulator, allowing the cellular machinery to temporarily 'pause' the translation of mRNA, indicating that the miRNA-mRNA interactions may be important for governing the optimal usage of cell volume.

Human RNAi pathway: crosstalk with organelles and cells

Understanding gene regulation mechanisms has been a serious challenge in biology. As a novel mechanism, small non-coding RNAs are an alternative means of gene regulation in a specific and efficient manner. There are growing reports on regulatory roles of these RNAs including transcriptional gene silencing/activation and post-transcriptional gene silencing events. Also, there are several known small non-coding RNAs which all work through RNA interference pathway. Interestingly, these small RNAs are secreted from cells toward targeted cells presenting new communication approach in cell-cell or cell-organ signal transduction. In fact, understanding cellular and molecular basis of these pathways will strongly improve developing targeted therapies and potent and specific regulatory tools. This study will review some of the most recent findings in this subject and will introduce a super-pathway RNA interference-based small RNA silencing network.