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. 2021 Feb 1;15:630633. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2021.630633

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Copyright © 2021 Li, Jia, Tang, Cui, Liu and Jiang.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Mechanism scheme of ceRNA network. The mature miRNA regulates the gene expression by forming a RISC (RNA-induced silencing complex) and binding to the complementary sequences in their 3′ untranslated regions of the target mRNA. As a result, the miRNA silences the gene through mRNA degradation or transcriptional repression. Both lncRNAs and circRNAs are rich in binding sites for miRNAs and serve as miRNA sponges in cells. They compete with mRNA for opportunities to bind with miRNAs. In this way, lncRNAs and circRNAs remove the miRNA’s inhibition to the target mRNA, and the expression of the mRNA increases as a consequence. This mechanism is called competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA).