Ubiquitous Ribonucleic Acid:miRNA is the Ubiquitin of RNA / 中国医学科学院学报

ABSTRACT

Small RNAs, especially microRNAs (miRNAs),widely exist in eukaryotic cells, with their main functions being regulating gene expression and function of target molecules through the degradation of cellular target RNAs by the ribonuclease-based system. Ubiquitins and ubiquitin-like proteins are polypeptides that exist in most eukaryotic cells, and their main function is almost to regulate protein level through the degradation of cellular proteins by ubiquitin proteasome system. Small RNAs, including miRNAs,and ubiquitins or ubiquitin-like proteins have similarities in many aspects although small RNAs and ubiquitin or ubiquitin-like proteins interact different substrates respectively. Therefore, miRNAs can be defined as ubiquitra (ubiquitous ribonucleic acid, ubiquitra or uRNA), and the other small RNAs can be defined as ubiquitra-like RNA or uRNA-like RNA. The concept of ubiquitra may be applied for explaining the biological essence of small RNAs diversity.