The Refined Control Switches

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Categories : Biology

Editor : MikeGene

published: mercredi 15 novembre 2006 4:33:22

In their study, Davidson and colleagues not only discovered that microRNAs could be expressed in a different way than previously known, they also found that some of the junk DNA is not junk at all, but instead consists of sequences that can generate microRNAs.

Expression of the microRNAs required an enzyme called RNA Polymerase III (Pol III) rather than the RNA Polymerase II (Pol II), which mediates expression of RNA that encode proteins.

"Non-coding RNA like microRNAs represent a set of refined control switches, and understanding how microRNAs work and how they are themselves controlled is likely to be very important in many areas of biology and medicine."

Biology,