PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Llave, Cesar
AU  - Xie, Zhixin
AU  - Kasschau, Kristin D.
AU  - Carrington, James C.
TI  - Cleavage of <em>Scarecrow-like</em> mRNA Targets Directed by a Class of <em>Arabidopsis</em> miRNA
AID  - 10.1126/science.1076311
DP  - 2002 Sep 20
TA  - Science
PG  - 2053--2056
VI  - 297
IP  - 5589
4099  - http://science.sciencemag.org/content/297/5589/2053.short
4100  - http://science.sciencemag.org/content/297/5589/2053.full
SO  - Science2002 Sep 20; 297
AB  - Micro-RNAs (miRNAs) are regulatory molecules that mediate effects by interacting with messenger RNA (mRNA) targets. Here we show that Arabidopsis thaliana miRNA 39 (also known as miR171), a 21-ribonucleotide species that accumulates predominantly in inflorescence tissues, is produced from an intergenic region in chromosome III and functionally interacts with mRNA targets encoding several members of the Scarecrow-like (SCL) family of putative transcription factors. miRNA 39 is complementary to an internal region of three SCL mRNAs. The interaction results in specific cleavage of target mRNA within the region of complementarity, indicating that this class of miRNA functions like small interfering RNA associated with RNA silencing to guide sequence-specific cleavage in a developmentally controlled manner.