Abstract
A decade ago the discovery of the target mimicry regulatory process on the activity of a mature microRNA (miRNA) enabled for the first time the customized attenuation of miRNA activity in plants. That powerful technology was named MIMIC and was based on engineering the IPS1 long noncoding transcript to become complementary to the miRNA under study. In order to avoid IPS1 degradation, the predicted miRNA-mediated cleavage site was interrupted by three additional nucleotides giving rise to the so-called MIMIC decoy. Since then, MIMIC technology has been used in several plant species and in basic and translational research. We here provide a detailed guide to produce custom-designed MIMIC decoys to facilitate the study of sRNA functions in plants.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Franco-Zorrilla JM, Valli A, Todesco M, Mateos I, Puga MI, Rubio-Somoza I et al (2007) Target mimicry provides a new mechanism for regulation of microRNA activity. Nat Genet 39:1033–1037
Todesco M, Rubio-Somoza I, Paz-Ares J, Weigel D (2010) A collection of target mimics for comprehensive analysis of microRNA function in Arabidopsis thaliana. PLoS Genet 6:e1001031
Gao F, Wang K, Liu Y, Chen Y, Chen P, Shi Z et al (2015) Blocking miR396 increases rice yield by shaping inflorescence architecture. Nat Plants 2:15196
Knauer S, Holt AL, Rubio-Somoza I, Tucker EJ, Hinze A, Pisch M et al (2013) A protodermal miR394 signal defines a region of stem cell competence in the Arabidopsis shoot meristem. Dev Cell 24:125–132
Rubio-Somoza I, Weigel D (2013) Coordination of flower maturation by a regulatory circuit of three microRNAs. PLoS Genet 9:e1003374
Acknowledgments
The work in the MoRE group is funded by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (I.R-S is supported by BFU-2014-58361-JIN, RYC-2015-19154; L. V-M is supported by BES-2016-076986) and through the “Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D” 2016-2019 (SEV-2015-0533) and the CERCA program from the Generalitat de Catalunya.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Villar-Martin, L.M., Rubio-Somoza, I. (2019). Mimicry Technology: A Versatile Tool for Small RNA Suppression. In: de Folter, S. (eds) Plant MicroRNAs. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1932. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9042-9_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9042-9_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-9041-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-9042-9
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols