Computational and experimental identification of novel microRNAs in goat

Abstract

microRNA (miRNA) is a class of non-coding small RNA molecules with roughly 22 nucleotides in length, regulating gene expression on post-transcriptional level and playing an important role in cell proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis process. Based on the conservation of miRNAs sequence, we compared the known miRNAs among five mammals, i.e., human, mouse, cattle, pig and dog with the sequence of sheep genome that is highly homologous to goat genome, published on the NCBI, and 11 candidate miRNAs were eventually obtained. RT-PCR analysis showed the expression of the 11 miRNAs in brain and 5 in liver, indicating that they might be novel miRNAs. The methodology provides an alternative approach to the exploration of new miRNAs in goat.