Novel method identifies 'hid...( that there are fewer than 35 genes tha...)

that there are fewer than 35 genes that remain either unconfirmed or undetected. The confirmed genes represent 48 gene families, of which 22 are conserved in humans. The researchers also report that each of these genes can be expressed at very high levels in the cells, with more than 1,000 miRNA molecules per cell and some miRNAs as abundant as 50,000 molecules per cell.

"The abundance of these tiny RNAs only increases the mystery as to why they hadn't been found earlier," says Bartel. The next step, he says, is to figure out the roles that microRNAs play in the machinery of cell growth and differentiation and find out what breaks down during disease. Bartel's lab has already made substantial progress towards this goal in plants, having matched up the first 16 microRNAs found in plants with target genes that they control.

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Contact: Kelli Whitlock or Melissa Withers
newsroom@wi.mit.edu
617-258-5183
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
17-Apr-2003

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