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Analysis of microRNA Regulation in Single Cells

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Deep Sequencing Data Analysis

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 2243))

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression by binding to mRNAs. Consequently, they reduce target gene expression levels and expression variability, also known as “noise.” Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) technology has been used to study miRNA and mRNA expression in single cells, and has demonstrated its strength in quantifying cell-to-cell variation. Here we describe how to investigate miRNA regulation using data with both mRNA and miRNA expression in single cell format. We show that miRNAs reduce the expression levels and also expression noise of target genes in single cells. Finally, we also discuss potential improvements in experimental design and computational analysis of scRNA-seq in order to reduce or partition the technical noise.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Tsinghua Xuetang Life Science Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Wendao Liu & Noam Shomron

Authors
  1. Wendao Liu
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  2. Noam Shomron
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Noam Shomron .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Noam Shomron

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Liu, W., Shomron, N. (2021). Analysis of microRNA Regulation in Single Cells. In: Shomron, N. (eds) Deep Sequencing Data Analysis. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2243. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-1103-6_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-1103-6_18

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  • Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-1102-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-1103-6

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