Talk:MicroRNA

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Older comments
The first sentance states that miRNAs are single stranded molecules. My understanding was that miRNAs were short, double stranded RNAs that were formed after processing of single stranded RNA precursors existing in a stem loop conformation. Please clarify. Thewookie55 20:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * They are indeed double-stranded for a short while during their biogenesis but one strand (the "passenger") is discarded during maturation. The active form is single-stranded so that it is free to hybridise to the target mRNA. Same for siRNAs by the way. Tospo 09:37, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

The title is wrong. It should be either "miRNA" or "micro-RNA". The first letter should not be capitalized. AdamRetchless 23:11, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

In the literature it is capitalized only at the beginning of a title or sentence and it is mostly written without a space or hyphen ("microRNA" or "miRNA"). Mateo 23:21, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Any idea as to why the Microprocessor complex proteins are named Drosha and Pasha? Pasha is a military leader, and Drosha is flag. Any alternate possibilities? ValaRaukar 10:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Pasha could also be a Russian soft variant of the name "Pavel" (Paul), Drosha = Andrusha = Andrey (Andrew). CopperKettle 04:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

shRNA and miRNA action differs significantly. While complementarity of miRNA to the target mRNA may be 100%, only specific positions, mostly at 5'-end, should be precise. shRNA on another hand depends on absolute complementarity to work.

Would information on pol II and III promoters be relevant?

Yeah, miRNAs must be refered to as a subclass of siRNAs, not something different.

There is no mention of piRNA or piwi-interacting RNA which are important in germline development.GetAgrippa 01:29, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not familiar with piRNAs, but I don't think they're microRNAs (even if they're small). I think microRNAs are very small RNAs (~22 nucs) that are processed by the dicer enzyme and are antisense to mRNAs.  Perhaps another article should be started on piRNAs?  Zashaw 23:25, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Your are correct that they are not miRNA. They are 29-30 nucleotides so they are longer than most micro RNA's, however they are small RNA's. Transcriptional gene silencing (piRNA mediated) usually represses gene expression by altering chromatin structure, unlike the miRNA and dicer enzyme. There is already mention of siRNA and then there is repeat associated small interference RNA, perhaps we should have an article called small RNA's and entertain all of them.GetAgrippa 21:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I've learned something today. (Now I can goof off till tomorrow ;-)  There's already an article Non-coding RNA, which I consider a synonym for small RNA (although "small" in this case means less than say a couple hundred nucs).  What I would propose is a separate article on piRNAs, which would be linked from Non-coding RNA, and probably microRNA.  Or maybe if there's not that much info on piRNAs, then just a paragraph in the Non-coding RNA article.  Seem right?  Zashaw 00:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I didn't know of the article either Zashaw. It could be condensed into a sentence or two for a short concise description. It will fit nicely in the non-coding RNA article (which is shaping up nicely-most excellent) after I quickly gave it a look see. Great call! I have a Science review article talking about piRNA, miRNA, etc. that I could use for a concise sentence or two. It may need its own stub for more detail, but the noncoding article is a great place to tie it all together. GetAgrippa 05:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I would strongly object to the term 'non-coding RNA' being applied to describe group of si-, mi-, sh-, pi- and asRNA. I think that a term 'RNAi molecules' (=interfering) would describe this group much better for several reasons. First of all, they all 'interfere' with target gene expression either transcriptionally or translationally (with RNA degradaion been somewhere inbetween). Second, their interference depends on (partial) complementarity to the target mRNA or target DNA. There are some other properties which can be used to pull them together but we should remember several other classes of 'non-coding' RNAs, namely ribosomal and transport RNA. In my opinion only RNAs proceeded by Dicer and afterwards incorporated into RISK should be included in this article or it becomes too big and vague. My two eurocents.Iralets 20:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)Igor


 * If we have enough content on these RNAs, we should put them in a more specific article. I haven't been following the literature enough to say what the article should be called.  However, at the moment, the non-coding RNA article seems logical, because (1) we only have a small amount of information on the sh-, pi- and asRNA, and (2) these _are_ non-coding RNAs.  Regardless, an article on Dicer and/or the RISC seems worthwhile, no matter where we discuss things. Zashaw 21:51, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Last issue of Nature Methods has a huge chunk allocated to put together all that is known in this field (http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v3/n9/index.html ). I can't agree that we don't know enough to put an article together. Since I'm new to Wiki I don't know how deep/specialized an article should be but general design based on energy distribution for preferable incorporation into RISC is rather widespread.Iralets 07:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I've just read this article : Hall, T.M. Structure and functions of argonaute proteins. "Structure", 2005 Oct;13(10):1403-8. PMID: 16216572 I think that it gives pretty good insight of how RISC complex recognize target mRNA. Iralets 14:52, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Iralets why don't you start a stub for interference RNA's. You can either write it or at least suggest a list of topics to address-Dicer, piwi,etc. Make it as detailed as you like, because laypeople will edit to a suitable encyclopedia level. Some articles are very specific and detailed depending on the topic. There are a number of good editors who can write and get it moving. Just contribute suggestions in Talk or write paragraphs. This is a collaborative effort so there are plenty of people who will keep it going. I have been amazed at the progress in "the nucleus" article in a short period of time from the collaborative process. There are a number of molecular biologist who also seek and contribute to similar articles, and scientist from other fields and laypeople often make significant contributions. The Wiki can be an incredibly productive process, but there is a lot of give and take at times. GetAgrippa 03:47, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

RNA interference
There is already an article for RNA interference. GetAgrippa 20:09, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

suggested paragraphs
I don't know how to use Wiki's tools, please forgive me for little bit inconsistence writing:

"miRNA can be located in different parts of genome. Many miRNAs are found in non-coding regions, like the first identified lin-4 and let-7. On another hand, miRNA can be found in the coding region for the specific protein but encoded in antisence direction. In the later case this miRNA usually silences expression of the protein in the sense direction. Last class of miRNAs, based on their coding location, is intronic miRNAs. Intronic miRNA are located in intronic regions of genes. Although both 3'UTR and 5'UTR can be considered intrones, processing of intronic miRNA located in in-frame intrones varies significantly. Intronic miRNAs have two feature which define their placement into separate group: first, they share the same promoter as a target gene, and second, they must be spliced out of the transcript of such encoded genes befor further processing into mature miRNA."

"It is still disputable if intronic miRNA are processed by Drosha after their respective introne is spliced out. Another alternative could be further processing by splaceosomal components before it is transported out of nucleus. Intronic miRNAs are transported out into cytoplasm where they are cut by Dicer."

Previous two paragraphs are based on Intronic MicroRNA (miRNA), Lin et al.,PMID: 17057362 [PubMed - in process].

"miRNA-mediated post-transcriptional silencing could be achived in two ways. One way is similar to shRNA mechanism when target mRNA is degraded, and another way to achieve translational silencing is to form miRNA-protein-mRNA complex uncapable of binding to ribosomes."

Later I'll add a paragraph or two about Drosha processing and thermodinamical properties of RNA plus folding prerequisites for optimal cleavage by Drosha. I would be really greatful if somebody with deeper understanding of termodinamic properties of nucleic acids would step in and write this part.

Viral vectors is another great tool for gene silencing and a lot of groups now use viral vector delivery of miRNA. Iralets 17:14, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

anyone here involved in developmental studies? I saw several publications about distribution of miRNAs during development using LNA mediated in situ which are great but since I know almost nothing in the field of developmental biology... Iralets 17:20, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

efficient processing of miRNA by Drosha
Following paragraphs are based on two articles (plus my attempt to compile these findings): Han, J. et al. Molecular Basis for the Recognition of Primary microRNAs by the Drosha-DGCR8 Complex. Cell, 125, 887-901.

Zeng, Y., et al. Efficient Processing of Primary microRNA Hairpins by Drosha Requires Flanking Nonstructured RNA Sequences. ''J. Biol. Chem., 280 (30), 27595-27603''

\\ Zeng et al. have shown that efficient processing of pre-miRNA by Drosha requires presence of extended single-stranded RNA on both 3'- and 5'-ends of hairpin molecule. They demonstrated that these motives could be of different composition while their length is of high importance if processing is to take place at all. Their findings were confirmed in another work by Han et al. Using bioinformatical tools Han et al. analysed folding of 321 human and 68 fly pri-miRNAs. 280 human and 55 fly pri-miRNAs were selected for further study, excluding those molecules which folding showed presence of multiple loops. All human and fly pri-miRNA contained very similar structural regions, which authors called 'basal segments', 'lower stem', 'upper stem' and 'terminal loop'. Based on the encoding position of miRNA, i.e. in the 5'-strand (5'-donors) or 3'-strand (3'-donors), thermodinamical profiles of pri-miRNA was determined. Following experiments have shown that Drosha complex cleaves RNA molecule ~2 helical turns away from the terminal loop and ~1 turn away from basal segments. In most analysed molecules this region contain unpaired nucleotides and deltaG [this triangular letter] is relatively high compared to lower and upper stem regions.

Most pre-miRNAs don't have perfect double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) structure toppled by a terminal loop. There are few possible explanations for such selectivity. One could be that dsRNAs longer then 11 base pairs activate interferon response and anti-viral machinery in the cell. Another plausible explanation could be that thermodinamical profile of pre-miRNA determines which strand will be incorporated into Dicer complex. Indeed, aforementioned study by Han et al. demonstrated very clear similarities between pri-miRNAs encoded in respective (5'- or 3'-) strands. \\

There were some works showing that dsRNAs with blunt ends are indeed strong inflammatory agents and the longer they are, the stronger is response.Iralets 13:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

siRNA sequence selection web tools
From Pei, Y. and Tuschl, T. On the art of identifying effective and specific siRNAs. Nature Meth., 3(9):670-676.

siDESIGN http://www.dharmacon.com/

RNAi Designer: http://rnaidesigner.invitrogen.com/

BIOPRDsi: http://www.biopredsi.org

Whitehead siRNA Selection server: http://jura.wi.mit.edu/bioc/siRNA

siDE: http://side.bioinfo.ochoa.fib.es/

siSearch: http://sisearch.cgb.ki.se/

Sirna: http://sfold.wadsworth.org/sirna.pl

siRNA design software: http://www.cs.hku.hk/~sirna

These programs can be used for designing artificial siRNA. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Iralets (talk • contribs) 14:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

miR-155 section
The section on miR-155 seems too long for this general page on microRNAs. I would suggest that this material is moved to a new page specific for that microRNA. It is probably worth noting that miR-155 is the first one to be knocked out, but perhaps not much more than that. Alexbateman 13:29, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Viral microRNAs
There is no mention of viruses encoding microRNAs which should be corrected as many DNA viruses and HIV-1 retrovirus have been demonstrated to encode microRNAs in their genomes.

MicroRNA knockout mice
Although miR-155 was indeed one of the first microRNAs to be knocked out in mice, it was preceded by the miR-1-2 knockout mouse (published April 20, 2007 in Cell, with Deepak Srivastava as corresponding author), which displays cardiac defects.

It should also be noted that the miR-155 knockout was described in two separate papers in the same issue of Science (April 27, 2007, with Klaus Rejewsky and Martin Turner/Allan Bradley as the respective corresponding authors).

Copyright infringement
I removed this text as a copyright infringement. However, it is sourced and reasonably important, so if someone wants, they can rewrite it.-Wafulz 17:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

General notes
This entire article needs a revamp, there are several issues, mainly in the accuracy of the information provided/or the understanding taken therefrom. I have just completed a PhD solely on miRNAs and would be willing to incorporate accurate, thoughtful information on the topic. Just to clarify one of the earlier Discussion points, miRNAs are not a subclass of siRNAs!!! They are completely different. The main point to consider is that in mammals, endogenous (generated by the organism itself)siRNAs have not been discovered, but they are present in plants (there is also a dire need to discuss the different classes of siRNA that are present in plants and their inherent differences). Importantly, miRNAs are produced endogenously in mammals and plants, and now constitute the largest class of posttranscriptional gene regulators. miRNAs use miRISC and siRNAs use siRISC, the absolute components of these complexes are not 100% clarified, and some particular miRNAs are thought to utilise additional factors, although the complexes are typically similar. Except for a couple of rare examples, in which a miRNA causes cleavage of a mRNA, miRNAs only bind with partial complementarity to the target, and direct translational repression and or deadenylation of mRNA. The miRNA seed region (nucleotides 2-8) from the 5' end of the miRNA binds to the mRNA target. For a mRNA to be a predicted target of the miRNA, several criteria have to be considered. Besides the obvious seed region match (2-8nt) (although doesn't have to be perfect), the miRNA should be able to access the 3'UTR of the mRNA (i.e the target site must meet strict thermodynamic criteria to be considered, although it might have a perfect seed match)

One more point, Pasha was named so for Partner of Drosha. As simple as that, there is no conspiracy. Also Pasha was first identified in flies by a yeast two hybrid screen as CG1800, and only termed Pasha after another group realised that it was homologous to DGCR8 (DiGeorge Syndrome Critical Region gene 8) in humans. Both DGCR8 and Pasha are dsRBD (double stranded RNA binding domain) containing proteins that function in concert with Drosha to act as a specificity factor in Drosha directed cleavage of the pri-miRNA

also a mention of intragenic versus intergenic miRNAs, their transcription, regulation of their transcription etc should be considered, and also links to some of the sites that we use, such as targetscan and tarbase, and the miRNA registry. These are great sites.

I think that the article should be divided into: history, classification/nomenclature, biogenesis, function (with tables), examples of cancer related, developmentally related miRNAs, miRNAs as prognostic/diagnostic markers etc etc.

i.e do not mention siRNAs, piRNA etc and provide links to a separate article, it is easy to confuse people with these small (but very different) molecules, and this would provide clarity and prevent confusion

Also, miRNA expression analysis by means of Locked nucleic acid (LNA) whole mount in situ hybridisation [LNA WMISH] is a major breakthrough in miRNA research. Knowing the expression of a miRNA enables the researcher to identify possible candidate targets for furhter analysis. see Tuddenham et al (2006) for a good example of mouse LNA WMISH for miR-140.88.111.112.151 (talk) 20:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

miRNA and cancer section
(I am not a science wiz, I just like to read it, so sorry if I'm not saying things right and making too much sense!)

I read about this research that showed how this scientist was able to make cancer metastasize and then fully reverse the process by increasing the amount of just one miRNA. The link is below:

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/cancer-link-0927.html

I think that it would be worth mentioning in the "miRNA and cancer" section. What do you guys think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Believr4god (talk • contribs) 08:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

There's a great review article on this subject here: http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v9/n4/abs/nrc2619.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.29.181 (talk) 14:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

my professor also relate those jobs to the miRNA Ontogenesis (timing), apoptosis, cell proliferation, oncogenesis i dont know for sure though —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.114.155.27 (talk) 09:40, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Lead and re-organization
Every person's research is important and appreciated in the field, but my sense of Wikipedia is that review articles should be used as the major sources in science articles. There are about 1500 PubMed reviews on microRNA. That should be enough for this article. Primary sources should be cited only for the most important historical work, like the discovery papers and maybe the first associations with cancer.

Is anyone interested in helping edit and update the article regularly? Drop me a note, please! MiRroar (talk) 18:54, 2 April 2010 (UTC)


 * So I'm working on this when I have time. My goals are,
 * Replace or rewrite text that looks like it was copied from somewhere
 * Conform to Manual of Style and format references
 * Replace most primary sources with highly cited reviews
 * Reorganize. For example, I don't think discussion of RISC components fits under Biogenesis. There should be a separate section on RISC and target specificity. MiRroar (talk) 19:53, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * More goals: Cellular functions should be expanded and maybe renamed to functions/mechanisms. RISC could go into a larger functions/mechanisms section. The experimental manipulation section should be elaborated and would make a good spin off article. Disease associations needs to be updated and could also have its own main article. MiRroar (talk) 16:42, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

miRNA and "intelligence"
Until there is much more evidence than one paper on X-linked mental retardation, the article should not say miRNA differences underlie differences in human "intelligence." MiRroar (talk) 16:10, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. It is a provocative statement and should require some additional support, agreed. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 15:46, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Commercialization of miRNA
I just discovered that back in April 2010, MiRroar removed the following passage from the section "miRNA and heart disease" with the edit comment "No thank you." I've put the raw wiki text here, with the material that was exposed in the reader version of the article underlined.


 *  In 2008, academic work on the relationship between miRNA and heart disease had advanced sufficiently to lead to the establishment of a company, miRagen Therapeutics  , with a primary focus on "cardiovascular health and disease".  

I am not arguing for reinserting the passage unchanged. Rather, I think that creation of a "commercialization" section would be good and this would be a suitable addition to such a section. However, this passage alone would not support creation of such a new section. Any thoughts on what additional material might be suitable for inclusion in a new "commercialization" section?

''P.S. The redirect mentioned in the hidden comment is MiRagen. It still exists, but I'm tempted to delete it so as not to confuse people looking for mentions of the company.''

P.P.S. A more recent news article which could be used or added as a second supporting reference: 

--User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 00:29, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I am sorry I didn't get to respond before now. I am also sorry if my summary seemed rude, didn't mean it that way. What I meant was, miRNAs are exciting, and everybody and their second cousin is working on miRNAs today and almost as many are starting companies. Is there enough support to add this company alone? If this company is added, how many more miRNA companies should we write about? How do we decide which companies to write about and how much space to give them?
 * The same questions should be asked about papers. Why this paper by Croce and not that paper by Filipowicz? 50-100 papers on miRNA come out every week, so should we use reviews only? If not, what makes a primary source so good it should be described in the article? Not stepping on anybods' toes, just saying if everybody writes in their paper or their company we will have too much clutter. MiRroar (talk) 20:41, 2 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with MiRroar. There are many companies investigating the commercial opportunities of miRNA. Once miRNA-based treatments have been published and have a proven efficacy then we could consider a Medical applications section or similar. Compare with similar, more mature systems, like Antibody. --Paul (talk) 07:54, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Translation inhibition versus transcript degradation
I reverted two edits by User:Tinz that helpfully referred to an August 12, 2010 paper by Guo et al in Nature. This paper from David Bartel's lab is important work that will hopefully move us to resolving the debate about relative contributions of translation inhibition and transcript degradation to miRNAs' effects on protein production. However it is probably not ideal to present the debate as settled by this one paper. There are many researchers in the field who collegially disagree with Bartel, and the field has historically viewed inhibition of translation as the main mechanism for miRNA-mediated effects. For many years, one of the things reviewers insisted on in miRNA article submissions was a demonstration that protein levels changed without concomitant changes in mRNA levels. Possibly these researchers were wrong, but it is good to present the debate and not just the latest research article.

The Guo paper is in an influential journal and maybe we could use it even though it is not a review article, in context of a discussion of the general debate. MiRroar (talk) 14:38, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * ok, I can understand you points, probably my addition was premature. Even though the claims in the article are quite strong, and usually only exceptional results appear in the form of an article (not:letter) in Nature. Maybe we can agree to add a sentence that says 1) that there is a debate on this question [because even that doesn't become clear right now], 2) as you mentioned, that for some years consensus was that translational inhibition dominates and 3) that this view is currently being challenged, e.g. by Guo et al. We could replace the citation of the article with a review that discusses its results at a later point, or remove it if - which I doubt - most future reviews ignore it. But those reviews have to be written first. --Tinz (talk) 17:50, 20 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Tinz, these are good suggestions. New reviews are best, but it would be ok to contrast past reviews with the new report (or reports, the Bartel lab has several papers on this now.) MiRroar (talk) 20:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Link from MMChip
Why does the mircoarray article link

MMChip to this page "Cellular functions"? There is no mentioning of screening/chip technologies, unless I'm mistaken. Should it link to the section "Experimental detection and manipulation of miRNA"? There is mentioning of microarray, but NO mention of MMChip (and why it is called MM).

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Redirect page Jump to: navigation, search Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMChip" Categories: Redirects with possibilities
 * 1) REDIRECT MicroRNA#Cellular functions

87.234.43.130 (talk) 15:44, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

News on mir-29 and neuron´s apoptosis: New molecule could save brain cells from neurodegeneration, stroke
Hi, editors of this article´s section on "miRNA and the nervous system" !: I´m not a specialist in this topic, nor related ones, but I found this recent news that I believe could be of interest to you, if you want to trace the news up to its roots.

BTW, an article on Mir-29 microRNA precursor (not on mir-29 itself) already exists in Wikipedia, if you want to reference it. Pmronchi (talk) 03:23, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Okamura et al reference
In the section about the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) there are a number of citations of the form (authorname, year). At least one of these citations, (Okamura et al, 2008), has no other information (PMID, DOI, even journal name) to help someone find the article referenced. I believe I have found the referenced article at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18769156, but currently don't have the time to learn wikipedia's style conventions. Perhaps someone else can link this appropriately. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.138.77 (talk) 13:07, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Should be fixed now.--Paul (talk) 15:01, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Sweet, thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.138.77 (talk) 05:12, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

microRNA in alga
In contrast to stated in the article, microRNA are found in algae. ref: miRNAs control gene expression in the single-cell alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Molnár A, Schwach F, Studholme DJ, Thuenemann EC, Baulcombe DC. Nature. 2007 Jun 28;447(7148):1126-9. Epub 2007 May 30. PMID:   17538623  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.90.153.50 (talk) 12:08, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

MicroRNA in bone and cartilage... and autoimmunity
Unfortunately I don't have access to this review, but perhaps someone who does would like to mine it for information for this page and other non-coding RNA pages. Yesterday I put another new reference on the H19 talk page concerning that gene's microRNA and osteoarthritis. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2012 Feb 24;418(4):587-91. Epub 2012 Jan 27. MicroRNAs regulate osteogenesis and chondrogenesis. PMID: 22306817 cheers!Celia Kozlowski (talk) 10:23, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess this just goes to show you that when your attention is called to something, you'll find it. Three non-coding RNA references in two days, and that's just in my area of interest (arthritis): Inflammation. 2012 Apr 26. [Epub ahead of print] Association of MicroRNA-146a with Autoimmune Diseases. Xu WD, Lu MM, Pan HF, Ye DQ. PMID: 22535496 Will put this on the MiRNA (miR)-146a talk page as well. Celia Kozlowski (talk) 11:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Dicer is not part of RISC
Subsection "The RNA-induced silencing complex" states "The mature miRNA is part of an active RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) containing Dicer and many associated proteins.[57]" Imo, this statement is probably false, Dicer is part of the miRNA pathway, but not of RISC itself. This is in line with the main article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA-induced_silencing_complex, which states: "The RNA endonuclease Dicer plays a role in aiding RISC action by providing the initial RNA material to activate the complex as well as the first RNA substrate molecule."

I have checked reference 57 (Rana, 2007), this review indeed mentions that: "As mentioned above, both classes of small RNAs, siRNAs and miRNAs, are assembled into silencing complexes that contain Dicer, Argonaute-family proteins and other proteins." himself citing another review by Filipowicz

However, I think that Rana indeed has a misread on Filipowicsz review, because Filipowiscz states: "The ∼100 kDa Argonautes, with characteristic PAZ and PIWI domains, are the only proteins consistently found in all RISC and miRNP complexes and fall into two subfamilies, Ago and Piwi."

Another review in Nature, latest high-ranking I found on topic, does not make this claim either anywhere

As a consequence, the sentence should mention AGO and RNA but not Dicer because its role as being part of the RISC itself is not consensus at best.

Mathematicians resolve decade-old debate
Is this already covered in the article? —Pawyilee (talk) 04:51, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Grammar Question
The past tense of cleave is normally clove, and the participle is cloven. Is there a good reason to use "cleaved"? It looks awkward, as would "weaved." 64.40.54.11 (talk) 03:53, 28 October 2014 (UTC)


 * These are two etymologically unrelated verbs that are homonymic despite also being almost antonymic. (FML, right?) They are cleave meaning "to adhere" (intransitive) and cleave meaning "to split" (in both transitive and intransitive senses). For both of the homonyms, the principal parts have variation that is widely accepted (as shown in major dictionaries), but for the "split" verb, they tend toward the strong (irregular) forms—cleave, clove, cloven/cleft. A good way to remember that is to think of established terms such as cleft palate and cloven hoof (both are body parts that are split into two parts). Meanwhile, for the "adhere" verb, the conjugation tends toward the weak (regular) forms—cleave, cleaved, cleaved. The strong forms are sometimes used, but The Chicago Manual of Style in its section "Good usage versus common usage" suggests sticking to the regular forms for the "adhere" verb (which is to say, cleaving to them—har har har). Regarding how dictionaries handle homonyms: notice how Wiktionary has one headword with multiple headings ("Etymology 1" and "Etymology 2"), whereas Merriam-Webster and American Heritage handle them via multiple headwords with numbers (e.g., 1cleave and 2cleave). As for nearly antonymic homonyms, they're almost as fun as speciously antonymic synonyms. Inflammable means flammable? What a country. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:35, 28 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I forgot to add last night that I suspect that in this context (a microbiological context) it may be difficult to convince microbiologists to stick to the strong principal parts, even though the "split" sense is meant, simply because microbiology today is so thoroughly globalized an effort, with so many ESL participants speaking International English, and so many of them are going to tend to use the weak (regular) inflections, to the point that those inflections may even outnumber the strong (irregular) inflections in the literature on this subject—at which point, it would be a lost cause, editorially, to try to call the regular inflections "wrong" when used within this context. One could still prescribe strong-only in editing work, but it would be a usage preference rather than a correction of an error. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:47, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

miRNAs and Alcoholism
I added a section under "Nervous System" about miRNAs and their possible role in addiction, under the related diseases subheading, which had very little about neurological diseases associated with MicroRNA. I discussed the possible roles of microRNAs in the pathophysiology of alcohol addiction. I also added a sentence to the section about nervous system disorders relating to microRNA function, about how bipolar disorder/depression/anxiety are also related to microRNA function (and not just schizophrenia). Jbryfonski (talk) 00:26, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

The lead sentance of the topic "The vital role of miRNAs in gene expression is significant to addiction, specifically alcoholism.[200] " seems to suggest that alcoholism as an addiction is special and at the same time it is indicative of all addictions. I have not read the paper, however it seems that the topic was taken from one paper on MiRNA and alcoholism and no other additive substances were studied. If this is so, I think it prudent to restate the lead sentance so that it is suggtive of the fact that in one study of alcoholism a vital role of miRNAs in gene expression has been shown. To state alcohoism is an addiction without explaining the complexities and nature of addiction seems misleading and would be behond the scope of this page. I'm not the best writer so please forgive what might seem blunt or condiming. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.56.41.15 (talk) 17:59, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Diagram depicting miRNA
Within this diagram: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/MiRNA.svg

The "Base mismatch" just to the right of step 2 is very poorly labelled.

It is very difficult to see that nucleotide on the Passenger strand has a rounded end, due to the placement of the line from the "Base mismatch" label.Jkokavec (talk) 10:42, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

In Addition it says pri-mRNA is exported out of the nucleus by Exportin-5. This is wrong! pri-miRNA is processed in the nucleus by DROSHA/DGCR8 to become pre-miRNA which is then in turn transported out of the nucleus by Exportin-5/RanGTP. --LuxMaryn (talk) 19:57, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

External links modified
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MicroRNA stem-loops and the origins of life
miRNA stem-loops, constituted of palindrome nucleobases with few non palindromic mistakes that cause bending, is a plausible candidate for the mother genotype because it's close to the nucleus (the dwelling place of our genome), it represents both monoclonal RNA and biclonal DNA, it can occur naturally due to statistics and number theory itself. All we need is to build an open virus including supporting proteins. Open viruses are primitive viruses that cannot enclose inside them their genome. Cells with membranes without DNA can occur naturally if enough lipids and stirring are present. It seems that an "open virus" having miRNA stem-loops entered inside some agenetic lipid cell. An open virus is a list of things in a soup, not an enclosed mechanism. It is something very archaic and it's functional only at large numbers, not sufficient as a complete mechanism. It's something random, that inside a vast range of randomness produces also a puny functional result, simply because that's what randomness dictates. Then the mechanism prevails over randomness due to efficiency.


 * We know that the ultimate ancestor was a soup, not a single organism, and that soup was comprised also of many genetic-code strands.


 * Soups don't have barriers• so we all are the offspring of a "single organism" called Earthling soup, and thus of common origin. (talk) 19:01, 8 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Bacteriophage genomes may encode as few as four genes (and as many as hundreds of genes). Phages replicate within the bacterium following the injection of their genome into its cytoplasm. Bacteriophages are among the most common and diverse entities in the biosphere. We should build an open bacteriophage (primitive virus not able to enclose its genome) which has miRNA genome in order to probe possible archaic biomechanics. 06:11, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Vanity press source
There is no scientific, WP:RS evidence that miRNAs accumulate from the diet or causes prostate cancer. An IP editor has been adding a citation from a vanity journal to support this claim (IP from the same location as the article's authors), but obviously this addition is not encyclopedic. I have deleted it but could use some help with maintaining the article. Thanks, Rbleibenusw (talk) 03:04, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Questionable references
Seven of the articles cited in this page have been either flagged with an expression of concern, or have their experimental data publicly questioned on Pubpeer : references 104, 134, 137, 161, 185 and 186. They should be removed from the page, as the papers cannot be relied upon. 134.214.242.142 (talk) 13:49, 31 March 2023 (UTC)