Large-scale analysis of microRNA evolution.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In animals, microRNAs (miRNA) are important genetic regulators. Animal miRNAs appear to have expanded in conjunction with an escalation in complexity during early bilaterian evolution. Their small size and high-degree of similarity makes them challenging for phylogenetic approaches. Furthermore, genomic locations encoding miRNAs are not clearly defined in many species. A number of studies have looked at the evolution of individual miRNA families. However, we currently lack resources for large-scale analysis of miRNA evolution.

Results

We addressed some of these issues in order to analyse the evolution of miRNAs. We perform syntenic and phylogenetic analysis for miRNAs from 80 animal species. We present synteny maps, phylogenies and functional data for miRNAs acros

SUBMITTER: Guerra-Assuncao JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3497579 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature