Precise microRNA (miRNA) target identification is essential to understand post-transcriptional gene regulation. With more than 2000 miRNAs in the human genome, miRNA regulation has been shown to be involved in nearly every physiological system and miRNA misregulation is linked to human diseases; however, identification of the mRNA targets of miRNAs remains a critical challenge.
The miR-eCLIP technology enables precise mapping of direct miRNA-mRNA interactions transcriptome wide. In contrast to alternative techniques that provide indirect methods to map miRNA targets (i.e., computational algorithms or over-expression/knockdown experiments), miR-eCLIP identifies direct in vivo miRNA targets using AGO2 immunoprecipitation, RNA-RNA ligation, and high-throughput sequencing (similar to methods such as CLASH or CLEAR-CLIP). Further, miR-eCLIP has the option of enriching for specific miRNAs or genes of interest, enabling profiling of miRNA-target interactions at an unprecedented depth.