# Kinetic modelling of competition and depletion of shared miRNAs by competing endogenous RNAs

## TL;DR

This paper reviews mathematical models of competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) and their role in gene regulation, focusing on miRNA interactions, network effects, and implications for cellular proteome composition.

## Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of kinetic models of miRNA-ceRNA interactions, highlighting how network topology influences ceRNA crosstalk and gene expression regulation.

## Key findings

- Mathematical models elucidate conditions for significant ceRNA interactions.
- Network topology affects the extent of miRNA-mediated crosstalk.
- ceRNA interactions influence gene expression noise and cellular regulation.

## Abstract

Non-conding RNAs play a key role in the post-transcriptional regulation of mRNA translation and turnover in eukaryotes. miRNAs, in particular, interact with their target RNAs through protein-mediated, sequence-specific binding, giving rise to extended and highly heterogeneous miRNA-RNA interaction networks. Within such networks, competition to bind miRNAs can generate an effective positive coupling between their targets. Competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) can in turn regulate each other through miRNA-mediated crosstalk. Albeit potentially weak, ceRNA interactions can occur both dynamically, affecting e.g. the regulatory clock, and at stationarity, in which case ceRNA networks as a whole can be implicated in the composition of the cell's proteome. Many features of ceRNA interactions, including the conditions under which they become significant, can be unraveled by mathematical and in silico models. We review the understanding of the ceRNA effect obtained within such frameworks, focusing on the methods employed to quantify it, its role in the processing of gene expression noise, and how network topology can determine its reach.