Polymorphic miRNA-target interactions : A Novel Source of Phenotypic Variation

Studying the muscular hypertrophy of Texel sheep by forward genetics, we have identified an A-to-G transition in the 3'UTRof the GDF8 gene that reveals an illegitimate target site for microRNAs miR-1 and miR-206 that are highly expressed in skeletal muscle. This causes the down-regulation of this muscle-specific chalone and hence contributes to the muscular hypertrophyof Texel sheep. We demonstrate that polymorphisms which alter the content of putative miRNA target sites are commonin human and mice, and provide evidence that both conserved and nonconserved target sites are selectively constrained. Wespeculate that these polymorphisms might be important mediators of phenotypic variation including disease. To facilitatestudies along those lines, we have constructed a database (www.patrocles.org) listing putative polymorphic microRNA–targetinteractions