Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Associated with MicroRNA Regulation

Since the discovery of microRNA (miRNA), the polymorphisms that affect miRNA regulation had been extensively investigated by many independent studies. Recently, researchers utilized bioinformatics and statistical approaches for genome-wide analysis on the human polymorphisms that reside in the miRNA genes, targets, and/or genes involved in miRNA processing. In this review, we will give an overview about the important findings of these studies from three perspectives: architecture of the polymorphisms within miRNAs or their targets, potential functional consequences of the polymorphisms on miRNA processing or targeting, and the associations of the polymorphisms with miRNA or target gene expression. The results of the previous studies demonstrated the signatures of natural selections on the miRNA genes and their targets, and proposed a collection of potentially functional, expression-associated, and/or positively selected polymorphisms that are promising for further investigations. In the meantime, a few useful resources about the polymorphic miRNA regulation have been developed and the different features of these databases were discussed in this review. Though recent research had benefited from these comprehensive studies and resources, there were still gaps in our knowledge about the polymorphisms involved in miRNA regulation, and future investigations were expected to address these questions.