1. Oligonucleotides
  2. MicroRNAs

MicroRNAs

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet has decided to award the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun “for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.” The first miRNA was discovered from Caenorhabditis elegans in 1993. Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun confirmed that lin-4 RNAs could regulate translation of the gene Lin-14 through an antisense mechanism. Since then, thousands of miRNAs have been gradually discovered in almost all groups of animals and plants, including humans, mice, rats, zebrafish, fruit flies, rice, arabidopsis, etc.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs ) are a class of endogenous non-coding RNAs (21-23 nt) that bind to target genes and regulate their expression. MiRNAs form RNA induced silencing complex (RISC) with various protein components that trigger endogenous RNA interference by regulating the stability or inducing mRNA degradation. MiRNAs are frequently altered in disease owing to genomic events, such as mutations, deletion amplification or transcriptional changes, or to biogenesis defects due to mutations or the downregulation of enzymes that regulate miRNA biogenesis.

Advances in the development of oligonucleotide chemistry have allowed for development of engineered oligonucleotides directed against specific miRNAs. MiRNA-based therapeutics can be divided into miRNA mimics and inhibitors of miRNAs (also known as antimiRs). MiRNA mimics are synthetic double-stranded small RNA molecules that match the corresponding miRNA sequence and therefore functionally aim to replenish the lost miRNA expression in diseases. By contrast, antimiRs are single stranded and based on first-generation antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs), which had been designed to target mRNAs, or modified with locked nucleic acids (LNAs). AntimiRs with a 2ʹ-O-methoxyethyl modification are also called antagomiRs. These synthetic small RNA molecules have a complementary sequence to the miRNA to be inhibited and block the function of the corresponding miRNA by binding to it strongly.


miRNA Synthesis Services

MicroRNAs (18429):

Cat. No. Product Name CAS No. Purity Chemical Structure