The Guideline of the Design and Validation of MiRNA Mimics

The miRNA mimic technology (miR-Mimic) is an innovative approach for gene silencing. This approach is to generate nonnatural double-stranded miRNA-like RNA fragments. Such an RNA fragment is designed to have its 5'-end bearing a partially complementary motif to the selected sequence in the 3'UTR unique to the target gene. Once introduced into cells, this RNA fragment, mimicking an endogenous miRNA, can bind specifically to its target gene and produce posttranscriptional repression, more specifically translational inhibition, of the gene. Unlike endogenous miRNAs, miR-Mimics act in a gene-specific fashion. The miR-Mimic approach belongs to the "miRNA-targeting" and "miRNA-gain-of-function" strategy and is primarily used as an exogenous tool to study gene function by targeting mRNA through miRNA-like actions in mammalian cells. The technology was developed by my research group (Department of Medicine, Montreal Heart Institute, University of Montreal) in 2007 (Xiao, et al. J Cell Physiol 212:285-292, 2007; Xiao et al. Nat Cell Biol, in review).