Biogenesis, Processing and Function of miRNA in Plants and Animals

MicroRNAs (miRNAs), initially discovered in C. elegans (Lee et al. 2001), are a large group of small endogenous RNAs (Ambros 2004, Bartel 2004, Carrington et al. 2003), that widely exist in animals (Tongwen et al. 2007), plants (Yi et al. 2003) and in some viruses (Cullen 2006). Increasing evidence demonstrates that miRNAs play an important function in many biological and metabolic processes, including tissue identity, developmental timing and response to environmental stress (Jones-Rhodes et al. 2006, Zhang et al. 2006).