MicroRNA MIR181 family
microrna mir181 family
In molecular biology miR-181 microRNA precursor is a small non-coding RNA molecule. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are transcribed as ~70 nucleotide precursors and subsequently processed by the RNase-III type enzyme Dicer to give a ~22 nucleotide mature product. In this case the mature sequence comes from the 5' arm of the precursor. They target and modulate protein expression by inhibiting translation and / or inducing degradation of target messenger RNAs. This new class of genes has recently been shown to play a central role in malignant transformation. miRNA are downregulated in many tumors and thus appear to function as tumor suppressor genes. The mature products miR-181a, miR-181b, miR-181c or miR-181d are thought to have regulatory roles at posttranscriptional level, through complementarity to target mRNAs. miR-181 which has been predicted or experimentally confirmed in a wide number of vertebrate species as rat, zebrafish, and in the pufferfish (see below) (MIPF0000007).