| lin-4 microRNA precursor | |
|---|---|
 Predicted secondary structure and sequence conservation of lin-4 | |
| Identifiers | |
| Symbol | lin-4 |
| Rfam | RF00052 |
| miRBase | MI0000002 |
| miRBase family | MIPF0000303 |
| Other data | |
| RNA type | Gene; miRNA |
| Domain(s) | Eukaryota |
| GO | GO:0035195 GO:0035068 |
| SO | SO:0001244 |
| PDB structures | PDBe |
In molecular biology lin-4 is a microRNA (miRNA) that was identified from a study of developmental timing in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.[1][2] It was the first to be discovered of the miRNAs, a class of non-coding RNAs involved in gene regulation.[3] miRNAs are transcribed as ~70 nucleotide precursors and subsequently processed by the Dicer enzyme to give a 21 nucleotide product. The extents of the hairpin precursors are not generally known and are estimated based on hairpin prediction. The products are thought to have regulatory roles through complete or partial complementarity to mRNA. The lin-4 gene has been found to lie within a 4.11kb intron of a separate host gene lho-1 (see also [1]).
- ^ Lee RC, Feinbaum RL, Ambros V (1993). "The C. elegans heterochronic gene lin-4 encodes small RNAs with antisense complementarity to lin-14". Cell. 75 (5): 843–854. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(93)90529-Y. PMID 8252621.
- ^ Rougvie, AE (2001). "Control of developmental timing in animals". Nat Rev Genet. 2 (9): 690–701. doi:10.1038/35088566. PMID 11533718.
- ^ Ambros, V (2001). "microRNAs: tiny regulators with great potential". Cell. 107 (7): 823–826. doi:10.1016/S0092-8674(01)00616-X. PMID 11779458.