V. Narry Kim (IBS and SNU) 1: microRNA Biogenesis and Regulation

Part 1: microRNA Biogenesis and Regulation: Narry Kim takes us through the steps in microRNA biogenesis and explains the importance of microRNAs in regulating protein-coding mRNAs.

Part 2: Tailing in the Regulation of microRNA and Beyond: Modifications, such as uridylation, of the 3’ tail of both microRNAs and mRNAs can regulate RNA function by targeting it for degradation.

Talk Overview:
Small RNAs (~20-30 nucleotides in length) are found in many eukaryotes and act to guard against unwanted RNA such as viruses, transposons and mRNAs. One family of small RNAs called microRNAs regulates protein-coding mRNAs by binding to the 3’UTR and repressing translation or inducing mRNA decay. microRNAs play a key role in animal development and diseases such as cancer.  In her first talk, Dr. Narry Kim gives a step-by-step description of the microRNA biogenesis pathway and the points at which the pathway can be regulated.

In her second talk, Kim focuses on the regulation of microRNA function. A small percentage of microRNAs are modified with untemplated nucleotides, usually A or U, added to their 3’ end or “tail”. “Tailing” can modify the microRNA function and in some cases it can act as a molecular switch resulting in developmental and pathological transitions.  Kim’s lab was interested in knowing if tailing occurs on other RNAs such as mRNA. They developed a novel method to sequence the 3’ tail region of mRNA allowing them to measure polyA tail length and detect 3’ terminal modifications.  Interestingly, they found widespread uridylation of mRNAs and showed that 3’ polyU modification serves to mark mRNA for decay.  

Speaker Biography:
Narry Kim is Director of the Institute for Basic Science and a Professor at Seoul National University.  Her lab studies RNA-mediated gene regulation using stem cells, early embryos, and neuronal cells as model systems.

Kim received her BA and MS degrees in microbiology from Seoul National University and her DPhil in biochemistry from Oxford University.  She was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in Gideon Dreyfuss’ lab before returning to Seoul National University as a faculty member.  

Kim is on the editorial board of a number of journals and has helped to organize many meetings on RNA biology.  Her research and contributions to the life sciences community have been recognized with numerous awards including the Women in Science Award from L’Oreal-UNESCO (2008) and the Ho-Am Prize in medicine (2009). In 2014, Kim was elected to the Korean Academy of Science and Technology and the National Academy of Sciences USA.  

[timothyongaba]

Thanksa whole lot for this. Got my Molecular Biology exam tomorrow and I am back here for the final touches.

[monkeyshow]

Professor Kim was my personal hero when I was an undergrad. Thank you so much for this video.

[sharpchieng]

Thank you very much for making this easy-to-understanding lecture.

[StewartChaimson]

Thank you very much for making this interesting lecture available here.

[hitkarshkushwaha]

Love you ma'am....nobody can explain like u

[lokkaf]

What's the point of having apical and basal junction when they are bound to be cleaved by Drosha and Dicer respectively? I can't fathom the fact they are being wasted. We once that introns were being wasted after alt. splicing, but that was not the case. I wonder, what happens to those cleaved nucleotides sequence?

[unitelanka]

Thanks for this great video. It's an excellent summary of the topic.

[priyanshu]

Mam really awesome and helpful vedio

Thank you

[naingwinhtut]

Please, could you explain the function of piRNA?

[metipallearuna]

Nano anty robots are good to learn about molecular rulers.

[esrefcelikcelik]

How long a cell or an organism survive without any of these parts in it? If they evolve randomly at different times, maybe millions years later, then how the cell could wait and survive those times?
They work much more efficient than any sophisticated machine or system designed by human genuity.
There is so much to learn from this nano robots and they inspire us.

[prakharawasthi]

I have two questions.
1.what is intronic region of non coding gene?
2.what is mirtron in miRNA genes.
thankyou ibiology team

[KE-quty]

Hello there, I have been trying to reach Professor Narry Kim about a possible PhD assistantship for sometime now, I even tried to reach members of her lab, no answer was received unfortunately. If someone can help, please let me know.

[asattar]

Don’t mention the word evolved.
You know better!