Definition of microRNA in US English:
microRNA
nounˌmīkrōˌärenˈāˌmīkrōˌärenˈā
Genetics A cellular RNA fragment that prevents the production of a particular protein by binding to and destroying the messenger RNA that would have produced the protein.
Example sentencesExamples
- By then, scientists had proposed that plant microRNAs control protein production by glomming onto messenger RNAs, an essential intermediate in the creation of a protein.
- Research reported in The Plant Cell shows that microRNAs control the accumulation of transcription factor proteins that regulate the expression of genes in the auxin response pathway.
- In molecular biology, microRNAs are clearly one of the top two or three discoveries of the past decade.
- X and Y could be microRNAs, transcriptional regulators or other proteins, or the smallest molecules and ions.
- In the cross of the egg-parent (species E) to a different species the lack of a microRNA specific to a transposon expressed in the G parent prevents transposon suppression, triggering genomic instability.