Genomic profiling of microRNAs regulating translation in drosophila melanogaster embryos

Abstract

Among the small RNAs, microRNAs are a particular class of 21 to 23 nucleotide RNAs that negatively regulate translation and play a pivotal role in posttranscriptional gene expression. microRNAs are found in many phyla that control such diverse events as metabolism, cell fate, cell death and development.The aim of this study is to investigate molecular mechanism of miRNAmediated translational regulation by profiling developmentally important microRNAs according to their translational status and to identify new microRNAs that have roles in translational regulation during the embryogenesis of Drosophila. Following RNA purification from different embryonal stages the fractionated RNAs were analyzed by microRNA microarray. Preliminary results show that 9 miRNAs were expressed in both stages whereas 60 miRNAs were accumulated in RNA fractions of 8 hour embryos.Also there are 2 miRNAs in all fractions of both stages in Drosophila embryos. It can be concluded that most of them were expressed in late embryonal development and there does not appear to be a switch in microRNA profiles in fractions for different stages of embryos. The preliminary results suggest that microRNAs may suppress protein synthesis at pre-initiation and initiation phases based on the microarray data.Further studies are required to solidify the preliminary findings.