OK, so reading the part of introduction you posted from the original manuscript, it just appears to say that C. Elegans and human mi-RNA have some different features (in this case, interaction with mRNA targets). OK.
Not sure what the big thing is there.
If you are wondering about how miRNA is seen from an evolutionary viewpoint, perhaps enter 'evolution' and 'miRNA' into pubmed, and see what you get. At the moment, I have a couple of relevant articles open. So I don't think it has any great implications for evolution. And by that, I mean lead to the 'Waterloo' that some people have been predicting for the last 150 years since Darwin and Wallace shocked the world with a new elegant theory. Although, from a different perspective I'm sure they might uncover lots of nice phenomena related to evolution and biology.
MBE Advance Access originally published online on February 22, 2008
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2008 25(5):929-938; doi:10.1093/molbev/msn040
Research Articles
Adaptive Evolution of Newly Emerged Micro-RNA Genes in Drosophila
Jian Lu*, Yonggui Fu, Supriya Kumar*, Yang Shen, Kai Zeng, Anlong Xu, Richard Carthew and Chung-I Wu*,
Accepted for publication February 4, 2008.
How often micro-RNA (miRNA) genes emerged and how fast they evolved soon after their emergence are some of the central questions in the evolution of miRNAs. Because most known miRNA genes are ancient and highly conserved, these questions can be best answered by identifying newly emerged miRNA genes. Among the 78 miRNA genes in Drosophila reported before 2007, only 5 are confirmed to be newly emerged in the genus (although many more can be found in the newly reported data set; e.g., Ruby et al. 2007; Stark et al. 2007; Lu et al. 2008). These new miRNA genes have undergone numerous changes, even in the normally invariant mature sequences. Four of them (the miR-310/311/312/313 cluster, denoted miR-310s) were duplicated from other conserved miRNA genes. The fifth one (miR-303) appears to be a very young gene, originating de novo from a non-miRNA sequence recently. We sequenced these 5 miRNA genes and their neighboring regions from a worldwide collection of Drosophila melanogaster lines. The levels of divergence and polymorphism in these miRNA genes, vis-à-vis those of the neighboring DNA sequences, suggest that these 5 genes are evolving adaptively. Furthermore, the polymorphism pattern of miR-310s in D. melanogaster is indicative of hitchhiking under positive selection. Thus, a large number of adaptive changes over a long period of time may be essential for the evolution of newly emerged miRNA genes.
So, it appears that miRNA can undergo duplication and divergence, leading to adaptive evolution. However, this next one comes closer to the issue I guess...
BMC Evol Biol. 2008; 8: 92.
Published online 2008 March 25. doi: 10.1186/1471-2148-8-92. PMCID: PMC2287173
The evolution of core proteins involved in microRNA biogenesis
Dennis Murphy,1 Barry Dancis,1 and James R Brown1
Background
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a recently discovered class of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) which play important roles in eukaryotic gene regulation. miRNA biogenesis and activation is a complex process involving multiple protein catalysts and involves the large macromolecular RNAi Silencing Complex or RISC. While phylogenetic analyses of miRNA genes have been previously published, the evolution of miRNA biogenesis itself has been little studied. In order to better understand the origin of miRNA processing in animals and plants, we determined the phyletic occurrences and evolutionary relationships of four major miRNA pathway protein components; Dicer, Argonaute, RISC RNA-binding proteins, and Exportin-5.
yadda, yadda...
Conclusion
Co-opting particular isoforms from large, diverse protein families seems to be a common theme in the evolution of miRNA biogenesis. Human miRNA biogenesis proteins have direct, orthologues in cold-blooded fishes and, in some cases, urochordates and deutrostomes. However, lineage specific expansions of Dicer in plants and invertebrates as well as Argonaute and RNA-binding proteins in vertebrates suggests that novel ncRNA regulatory mechanisms can evolve in relatively short evolutionary timeframes. The occurrence of multiple homologues to RNA-binding and Argonaute/PIWI proteins also suggests the possible existence of further pathways for additional types of ncRNAs.
So this appears to show there are relationships between biogenesis proteins of miRNA in various species. And the lit. review from Murphy, Dancis, & Brown (2008) contains this:
Evolutionary analyses of miRNA gene families have revealed a combination of older ancestral relationships and recent lineage-specific diversification. The human genome itself likely encodes for a few hundred miRNAs, many of which have recognizable homologues to miRNA genes in different species (orthology) as well as amongst themselves (paralogy) [21]. Several families of miRNA genes, such as let-7, are highly conserved amongst different vertebrate and invertebrate species [22]. In addition, genomic organization of miRNA genes is often recognizable across diverse species such as the mir-196 and mir-10 gene families that likely co-evolved with Hox proteins [23] and the mir-17 gene cluster which has apparently undergone a complex series of gene duplication and loss in vertebrates [24]. However, miRNAs can also have restrictive taxonomic distribution such as the Early Embryonic microRNA Cluster (EEmiRC) locus of six pre-miRNA precursors restricted to placental (eutherian) mammals [25]. Many miRNA genes found in primates, including humans, are absent in other mammals [21,26]. Similar patterns of conservation and diversification have been observed for miRNAs in across plant species [27].
Thus, some relationships, some specific.
Interesting subject though.
Latter article is open source, former might require instituional subscription.
[edit on 14-5-2008 by melatonin]
