BackgroundWe have studied the dynamics of miRNA regulation in two models of circadian oscillators. miRNAs are a class of small RNA molecules (18–24 nucleotides) that are known to regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level by reducing the amount of proteins produced by translation. This is done either by blocking translation or by degradation of mRNAs, the latter being mainly due to the initiation of a set of processes induced by formation of the miRNA:mRNA complex. Although miRNAs are known to regulate a large number of fundamental biological processes such as growth and development, their role in the dynamics of regulation is not completely understood. In exceptional cases, in particular, they can also up-regulate gene expression.
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