microPrimer: the biogenesis and function of microRNA
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Updated: Aug 15, 2026

A Complete Pipeline for Isolating and Sequencing MicroRNAs, and Analyzing Them Using Open Source Tools
Published on: August 21, 2019
Tingting Du1, Phillip D Zamore
1Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.
Abstract:
Discovered in nematodes in 1993, microRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding RNAs that are related to small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), the small RNAs that guide RNA interference (RNAi). miRNAs sculpt gene expression profiles during plant and animal development. In fact, miRNAs may regulate as many as one-third of human genes. miRNAs are found only in plants and animals, and in the viruses that infect them. miRNAs function very much like siRNAs, but these two types of small RNAs can be distinguished by their distinct pathways for maturation and by the logic by which they regulate gene expression.
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