Emory geneticist Peng Jin and his colleagues have a review in the June 25, 2010 issue of Chemistry and Biology exploring whether microRNAs offer new possibilities for pharmacology.

MicroRNAs directly regulate other genes

The microRNA pathway represents both a way for scientists to “knock down” the activity of just one gene in the laboratory, and a major way for cells to regulate their genes during development.

MicroRNAs add a big wallop of complexity on top of the standard model of molecular biology, where the information in DNA is made into RNA, and RNAs make proteins. MicroRNAs don’t get turned into protein, but directly regulate other genes.

Andrew Fire and Craig Mello received the 2006 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery that short pieces of RNA, when introduced into cells, can silence genes. This “RNA interference” tactic hijacks the natural machinery inside the cell that microRNAs use.

In 2008, Jin and coworkers published in Nature Biotechnology their discovery that certain antibiotics called fluoroquinolones (ciprofloxacin is one) can make the RNA interference process work more efficiently — in general. In the review, Jin notes that scientists are starting to look for drugs that act more selectively, disrupting or enhancing a particular microRNA rather than many at once:

Since miRNAs play major roles in nearly every cellular process, the identification and characterization of small-molecule modulators of the RNAi/miRNA pathway will yield fresh insights into fundamental mechanisms behind human disease… Moreover, these RNAi modulators, particularly RNAi enhancers, could potentially facilitate the development of RNA interference as a tool for biomedical research and therapeutic interventions.