Effect of miR-34a overexpression on the transcriptome of HEK293T cells

MicroRNAs regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally through binding to target sites in mRNAs. Predictions of target site efficiency are limited by our understanding of the structure-function relationship of microRNA-target complexes. Here, we overexpressed miR-34a in HEK293T cells and performed RNA-sequencing in order to study how different structural features of predicted miRNA-target complexes correlate with changes in gene expression. To investigate how different structural features of microRNA-target complexes affect target gene repression, we transfected HEK293T cells with miR-34a duplex or AllStars negative control miRNA (Qiagen). Total RNA was collected 18 h post-transfection and samples were analyzed for differential gene expression using bulk RNA-sequencing. Three biological replicates were included for each condition.