• Molecules and Cells
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.21-32
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• 2023

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play cardinal roles in regulating biological pathways and processes, resulting in significant physiological effects. To understand the complex regulatory network of miRNAs, previous studies have utilized massivescale datasets of miRNA targeting and attempted to computationally predict the functional targets of miRNAs. Many miRNA target prediction tools have been developed and are widely used by scientists from various fields of biology and medicine. Most of these tools consider seed pairing between miRNAs and their mRNA targets and additionally consider other determinants to improve prediction accuracy. However, these tools exhibit limited prediction accuracy and high false positive rates. The utilization of additional determinants, such as RNA modifications and RNA-binding protein binding sites, may further improve miRNA target prediction. In this review, we discuss the determinants of functional miRNA targeting that are currently used in miRNA target prediction and the potentially predictive but unappreciated determinants that may improve prediction accuracy.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Bioinformatics Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.150-157
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• 2004

microRNA (miRNA)는 21-25 nucleotide (nt)의 single-stranded RNA 분자로서 mRNA의 3' untranslated region (3' UTR)에 상보적으로 결합하여 유전자 발현을 제어하는 새로운 조절물질이다. 지금까지 실험을 통해 수백 개의 miRNA가 알려져 있으나, miRNA에 의해 조절되는 target 유전자는 실험상의 어려움으로 아직까지 거의 알려지지 않았다. miRNA는 서열의 길이가 짧고 target과 느슨한 상보적 결합을 하기 때문에 기존의 서열 비교 방법으로 miRNA의 target을 찾는 것은 쉬운 일이 아니다. 본 논문은 신경망을 이용하여 Caenorhabditis elegans mRNA의 3' UTR에서 miRNA가 결합하는 영역을 예측하였다. 신경망은 복잡한 비선형 데이터를 잘 분리해내고 불완전하고 잡음이 많은 입력에 강하기 때문에 miRNA target 예측에 적합하다. miRNA와 mRNA의 결합 영역을 다양하게 분석하였고 민감도 0.59, 특수도 0.99의 성능을 갖는 신경망을 구현하였다. 신경망 입력 값을 달리하여 각각의 특성이 결과에 미치는 영향을 분석하였고 기존 예측 방법에 의한 결과와 비교하여 성능을 평가하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Information Science Society Conference
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• 2004.10b
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• pp.301-303
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• 2004

microRNA(miRNA)는 -22 nucleotide(nt)의 단일가닥 (single-stranded) RNA 분자로서 mRNA의 3'-untranslated region (3' UTR)에 상보적으로 결합하여 유전자 발현을 제어하는 새로운 조절물질이다. 지금까지 실험을 통해 1184개의 miRNA가 알려져 있으나, miRNA에 의해 조절되는 target유전자는 실험상의 어려움으로 아직까지 거의 알려지지 않았다. miRNA는 서열의 길이가 짧고 target과 느슨한 상보적 결합을 하기 때문에 기존의 서열 비교 방법으로 miRNA의 target을 찾는 것은 쉬운 일이 아니다. 본 논문은 신경망을 이용하여 mRNA의 3' UTR에서 miRNA가 결합하는 영역을 예측하였다. 신경망은 비선형의 데이터를 학습할 수 있어 miRNA target예측에 적합하다. miRNA와 mRhA의 결합 영역을 다양하게 분석하였고 기존 예측방법에 의한 결과와 비교하여 성능을 평가하였다.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.375-381
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• 2016

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs (~22 nucleotides) regulating gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. By directing the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) to bind specific target mRNAs, miRNA can repress target genes and affect various biological phenotypes. Functional miRNA target recognition is known to majorly attribute specificity to consecutive pairing with seed region (position 2-8) of miRNA. Recent advances in a transcriptome-wide method of mapping miRNA binding sites (Ago HITS-CLIP) elucidated that a large portion of miRNA-target interactions in vivo are mediated not only through the canonical "seed sites" but also via non-canonical sites (~15-80%), setting the stage to expand and determine their properties. Here we focus on recent findings from transcriptome-wide non-canonical miRNA-target interactions, specifically regarding "nucleation bulges" and "seed-like motifs". We also discuss insights from Ago HITS-CLIP data alongside structural and biochemical studies, which highlight putative mechanisms of miRNA target recognition, and the biological significance of these non-canonical sites mediating marginal repression.

• BMB Reports
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• v.47 no.8
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• pp.417-423
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• 2014

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a large family of post-transcriptional regulators, which are 21-24 nt in length and play a role in a wide variety of biological processes in eukaryotes. The past few years have seen rapid progress in our understanding of miRNA biogenesis and the mechanism of action, which commonly entails a combination of target degradation and translational repression. The target degradation mediated by Argonaute-catalyzed endonucleolytic cleavage exerts a significant repressive effect on target mRNA expression, particularly during rapid developmental transitions. This review outlines the current understanding of the mechanistic aspects of this important process and discusses several different experimental approaches to identify miRNA cleavage targets.

• BMB Reports
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.158-159
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• 2017

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression by guiding the Argonaute (Ago)-containing RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) to specific target mRNA molecules. It is well established that miRNAs are stabilized by Ago proteins, but the molecular features that trigger miRNA destabilization from Ago proteins remain largely unknown. To explore the molecular mechanisms of how targets affect the stability of miRNAs in human Ago (hAgo) proteins, we employed an in vitro system that consisted of a minimal hAgo2-RISC in HEK293T cell lysates. Surprisingly, we found that miRNAs are drastically destabilized by binding to seedless, non-canonical targets. We showed that miRNAs are destabilized at their 3' ends during this process, which is largely attributed to the conformational flexibility of the L1-PAZ domain. Based on these results, we propose that non-canonical targets may play an important regulatory role in controlling the stability of miRNAs, instead of being regulated by miRNAs.

• BMB Reports
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• v.50 no.11
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• pp.554-559
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• 2017

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are ~22nt-long single-stranded RNA molecules that form a RNA-induced silencing complex with Argonaute (AGO) protein to post-transcriptionally downregulate their target messenger RNAs (mRNAs). To understand the regulatory mechanisms of miRNA, discovering the underlying functional rules for how miRNAs recognize and repress their target mRNAs is of utmost importance. To determine functional miRNA targeting rules, previous studies extensively utilized various methods including high-throughput biochemical assays and bioinformatics analyses. However, targeting rules reported in one study often fail to be reproduced in other studies and therefore the general rules for functional miRNA targeting remain elusive. In this review, we evaluate previously-reported miRNA targeting rules and discuss the biological impact of the functional miRNAs on gene-regulatory networks as well as the future direction of miRNA targeting research.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.53-62
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• 2005

MicroRNAs play an important role in regulating gene expression, but their target identification is a difficult task due to their short length and imperfect complementarity. Burge and coworkers developed a program called TargetScan that allowed imperfect complementarity and established a procedure favoring targets with multiple binding sites conserved in multiple organisms. We improved their algorithm in two major aspects - (i) using well-defined UTR (untranslated region) database, (ii) examining the extent of conservation inside the 3' UTR specifically. Average length in our UTR database, based on the ECgene annotation, is more than twice longer than the Ensembl. Then, TargetScan was used to identify putative binding sites. The extent of conservation varies significantly inside the 3' UTR. We used the 'tight' tracks in the UCSC genome browser to select the conserved binding sites in multiple species. By combining the longer 3' UTR data, TargetScan, and tightly conserved blocks of genomic DNA, we identified 107 putative target genes with multiple binding sites conserved in multiple species, of which 85 putative targets are novel.

• BMB Reports
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• v.48 no.12
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• pp.643-644
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• 2015

In eukaryotes, small RNAs play important roles in both gene regulation and resistance to viral infection. Argonaute proteins have been identified as a key component of the effector complexes of various RNA-silencing pathways, but the mechanistic roles of Argonaute proteins in these pathways are not clearly understood. To address this question, we performed single-molecule fluorescence experiments using an RNA-induced silencing complex (core-RISC) composed of a small RNA and human Argonaute 2. We found that target binding of core-RISC starts at the seed region of the guide RNA. After target binding, four distinct reactions followed: target cleavage, transient binding, stable binding, and Argonaute unloading. Target cleavage required extensive sequence complementarity and accelerated core-RISC dissociation for recycling. In contrast, the stable binding of core-RISC to target RNAs required seed-match only, suggesting a potential explanation for the seed-match rule of microRNA (miRNA) target selection.

• BMB Reports
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.226-231
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• 2017

At the post-transcriptional and translational levels, microRNA (miRNA) represses protein-coding genes via seed pairing to the 3' untranslated regions (UTRs) of mRNA. Although working models of miRNA-mediated gene silencing are successfully established using miRNA transfections and knockouts, the regulatory interaction between miRNA and long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) remain unknown. In particular, how the mRNA-resembling lncRNAs with 5' cap, 3' poly(A)-tail, or coding features, are regulated by miRNA is yet to be examined. We therefore investigated the functional interaction between miRNAs and lncRNAs with/without those features, in miRNA-transfected early zebrafish embryos. We observed that the greatest determinants of the miRNA-mediated silencing of lncRNAs were the 5' cap and 3' poly(A)-tails in lncRNAs, at both the post-transcriptional and translational levels. The lncRNAs confirmed to contain 5' cap, 3' poly(A)-tail, and the canonical miRNA target sites, were observed to be repressed in the level of both RNA and ribosome-protected fragment, while those with the miRNA target sites and without 5' cap and 3' poly(A)-tail, were not robustly repressed by miRNA introduction, thus suggesting a role as a miRNA-decoy.