Viral MicroRNA Mimicing Cellular MicroRNA? and a New Dual-Fluuorescent Reporter System

A team out of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has reported both a new dual-fluorescent reporter system, and an insight on a suspected general phenomenon of functionally matched viral and cellular microRNA in viral-host interactions. You X, Zhang Z, Fan J, Cui Z, Zhang X-E (2012) Functionally Orthologous Viral and Cellular MicroRNAs Studied by a Novel Dual-Fluorescent Reporter System. PLoS ONE 7(4): e36157. Now for context, the gist of what’s known about microRNAs (miRNA) is that they can be thought of as epigenetic post-transcriptional volume control. Modulating…fine tuning…dialling gene expression up or down.   MicroRNAs are ~18-24 nucleotide molecules that are processed from long, highly evolutionarily conserved sequences in organisms and viruses. Such pre-miRNA sequences are located at protein gene introns, … Continue reading →