Molecular therapy in the microRNA era

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) consist of a growing class of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) that negatively regulate the expression of genes involved in development, differentiation, proliferation, apoptosis and other important cellular processes. miRNAs are usually 18–25 nt long and are each able to regulate several mRNAs by mechanisms such as incomplete base pairing and Post-Transcriptional Gene Silencing (PTGS). A growing number of reports have shown that aberrant miRNA expression is a common feature of human diseases including cancer, which has sparked interest in targeting these regulators of gene expression as a means of ameliorating these diseases. Here, we review important aspects of miRNA function in normal and pathological states and discuss new modalities of epigenetic intervention strategies that could be used to amend defects in miRNA/mRNA interactions.