Targets of epithelial microRNAs

MicroRNAs是调节大多数基因表达的小分子，因此几乎影响到每一个生物过程和病理，尽管它们是不到10年前才在人类身上发现的。发现miRNAs功能的瓶颈是识别它们的分子靶点，其中大部分仍然未知。我们的目标是全面鉴定上皮特异性microRNAs的直接靶基因，并通过基因靶标验证方法确认其中的一些基因。

MicroRNAs are small molecules that modulate the expression of most genes and so affect nearly every biological process and pathology although, they were only discovered in humans less than 10 years ago. The bottleneck in discovering the functions of miRNAs is in identifying their molecular targets, the majority of which remain unknown. We aim to comprehensively identify direct target genes of epithelial-specific microRNAs and to confirm a number of them by gene target validation approaches.