MicroRNA Control of Immunity and Cancer

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenously encoded small RNAs that bind to their target messenger RNAs (mRNAs) and regulate their expression by translation repression and mRNA degradation. Thousands of miRNAs have been identified and many of them are evolutionarily conserved. Genetic studies have demonstrated that miRNAs play important roles in a large diversity of biological processes. However, the function and molecular mechanism of action of individual miRNAs remain poorly understood. This has become a major obstacle in the development of miRNA-based therapeutics to treat cancer and other human diseases. The primary interest of my group is to study the function and mechanism of miRNAs in the immune system, focusing on their roles in immune responses to protein antigens and viruses, immune tolerance, autoimmune diseases, and lymphoma. We have made significant progress in our understanding of how individual miRNA genes control the development and effector function of B and T lymphocytes, how elevated expression of a single miRNA gene drives lymphoma development, and how miRNAs regulate their target gene expression at the molecular level. I will present the latest development in our research and discuss their implications in developing miRNA-based therapeutic regimens.