Mono-Uridylation of Pre-MicroRNA as a Key Step in the Biogenesis of Group II let-7 MicroRNAs Inha Heo,1,2,3 Minju Ha,1,2,3 Jaechul Lim,1,2 Mi-Jeong Yoon,2 Jong-Eun Park,1,2 S. Chul Kwon,1,2 Hyeshik Chang,1,2 and V. Narry Kim1,2,* 1Institute for Basic Science 2School of Biological Sciences Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Korea 3These authors contributed equally to this work *Correspondence:
[email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2012.09.022 SUMMARY hairpin (Denli et al., 2004; Gregory et al., 2004; Han et al., 2004, 2006; Landthaler et al., 2004). Like other RNase-III-type RNase III Drosha initiates microRNA (miRNA) matu- endonucleases, Drosha introduces a staggered cut such that ration by cleaving a primary miRNA transcript and the product acquires a characteristic 2 nt overhang at the 30 releasing a pre-miRNA with a 2 nt 30 overhang. Dicer terminus. After cleavage, the pre-miRNA is exported to the recognizes the 2 nt 30 overhang structure to selec- cytoplasm by exportin 5 in a complex with Ran-GTP (Bohnsack tively process pre-miRNAs. Here, we find that, unlike et al., 2004; Lund et al., 2004; Yi et al., 2003). The cytoplasmic prototypic pre-miRNAs (group I), group II pre- RNase III Dicer processes the pre-miRNA further to liberate a small RNA duplex (Bernstein et al., 2001; Grishok et al., miRNAs acquire a shorter (1 nt) 30 overhang from 0 2001; Hutva´ gner et al., 2001; Ketting et al., 2001; Knight and Drosha processing and therefore require a 3 -end Bass, 2001).