MicroRNA precursors are not structurally robust but plastic
Robustness is considered a ubiquitous property of living systems at all levels of organization, and small noncoding RNA (sncRNA) is a genuine model for its study at the molecular level. In this communication, we question whether microRNA precursors (pre-miRNAs) are actually structurally robust, as p...
| Autores: | , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión enviada para evaluación y publicación |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2012 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.csic.es:10261/92950 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/92950 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Conformational flexibility Evolvability Non-coding RNA secondary structure thermodynamics |
| Sumario: | Robustness is considered a ubiquitous property of living systems at all levels of organization, and small noncoding RNA (sncRNA) is a genuine model for its study at the molecular level. In this communication, we question whether microRNA precursors (pre-miRNAs) are actually structurally robust, as previously suggested. We found that natural pre-miRNAs are not more robust than expected under an appropriate nullmodel. On the contrary, we found that eukaryotic pre-miRNAs show a significant enrichment in conformational flexibility at the thermal equilibrium of the molecule, that is, in their plasticity. Our results further support the selection for functional diversification and evolvability in sncRNAs. © 2012 The Author(s). |
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