Assignment BMG7: micro RNA specificity

Opened: Thursday, 26 November 2009, 3:55 PM
Due: Sunday, 10 January 2010, 3:55 PM

Scientists have shown that miRNA recognize target mRNAs by hybridizing to short target sequences: 7-8 bases at the 5' of the miRNA and 4-5 bases at the 3' (see slides 21 and 22). Between these sequences, few bases bulge out.

On the basis of the simple probability, do you think that a given miRNA will target a single mRNA?

If "yes", justify your judgement. If "no", how many targets for a single miRNA will you hypothesize ?