MicroRNA regulation and interspecific variation of gene expression
- Resource Type
- Article
- Authors
- Cui, Qinghua; Yu, Zhenbao; Purisima, Enrico O.; Wang, Edwin
- Source
- Trends in Genetics. Aug2007, Vol. 23 Issue 8, p372-375. 4p.
- Subject
- *RNA
*GENE expression
*BIOLOGICAL variation
*GENETIC regulation
*GENES
- Language
- ISSN
- 0168-9525
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) modulate expression of their target genes in various tissues and at different developmental stages, but it is unclear whether they drive cross-species variation in gene expression. By comparing data from mammal and fly species we found that the cross-species expression variation of miRNA targets is significantly lower than that of other genes. This implies that miRNAs can affect gene expression by reducing stochastic noise, buffering cross-species variation and constraining evolutionary gene expression variation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]