miRepress: modelling gene expression regulation by microRNA with non-conventional binding sites

Sci Rep. 2016 Feb 29:6:22334. doi: 10.1038/srep22334.

Abstract

Some earlier studies have reported an alternative mode of microRNA-target interaction. We detected target regions within mRNA transcripts from AGO PAR-CLIP that did not contain any conventional microRNA seed pairing but only had non-conventional binding sites with microRNA 3' end. Our study from 7 set of data that measured global protein fold change after microRNA transfection pointed towards the association of target protein fold change with 6-mer and 7-mer target sites involving microRNA 3' end. We developed a model to predict the degree of microRNA target regulation in terms of protein fold changes from the number of different conventional and non-conventional target sites present in the target, and found significant correlation of its output with protein expression changes. We validated the effect of non-conventional interactions with target by modulating the abundance of microRNA in a human breast cancer cell line MCF-7. The validation was done using luciferase assay and immunoblot analysis for our predicted non-conventional microRNA-target pair WNT1 (3' UTR) and miR-367-5p and immunoblot analysis for another predicted non-conventional microRNA-target pair MYH10 (coding region) and miR-181a-5p. Both experiments showed inhibition of targets by transfection of microRNA mimics that were predicted to have only non-conventional sites.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • 3' Untranslated Regions
  • 5' Untranslated Regions
  • Binding Sites* / genetics
  • Cell Line
  • Computational Biology / methods*
  • Gene Expression
  • Gene Expression Regulation*
  • Genes, Reporter
  • Humans
  • MicroRNAs / genetics*
  • Models, Biological*
  • Myosin Heavy Chains / chemistry
  • Myosin Heavy Chains / genetics
  • Nonmuscle Myosin Type IIB / chemistry
  • Nonmuscle Myosin Type IIB / genetics
  • Nucleotide Motifs
  • Open Reading Frames
  • Protein Binding
  • Protein Folding
  • RNA Interference*
  • RNA, Messenger / chemistry
  • RNA, Messenger / genetics
  • Reproducibility of Results

Substances

  • 3' Untranslated Regions
  • 5' Untranslated Regions
  • MicroRNAs
  • RNA, Messenger
  • Nonmuscle Myosin Type IIB
  • nonmuscle myosin type IIB heavy chain
  • Myosin Heavy Chains