摘要
Found in all metazoans, microRNAs or miRNAs are small non-coding RNA of-22 nucleotides in length that completely reshaped our understanding of gene regulation. This new class ofgene regulator is mostly transcribed by the RNA polymerase II producing a long stem-loop structure, called primary- or pri-miRNA, that will first be processed in the cell nucleus by a multiprotein complex called microprocessor to generate a shorter RNA structure called precursor- or pre-miRNA.