Characterisation of microRNAs from apple (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Malus domestica</Emphasis>'Royal Gala') vascular tissue and phloem sap

Background  

Plant microRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small, non-coding RNAs that play an important role in development and environmental responses. Hundreds of plant miRNAs have been identified to date, mainly from the model species for which there are available genome sequences. The current challenge is to characterise miRNAs from plant species with agricultural and horticultural importance, to aid our understanding of important regulatory mechanisms in crop species and enable improvement of crops and rootstocks.     

Deep sequencing on genome-wide scale reveals the unique composition and expression patterns of microRNAs in developing pollen of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Oryza sativa</Emphasis>

Background  

Pollen development in flowering plants requires strict control of the gene expression program and genetic information stability by mechanisms possibly including the miRNA pathway. However, our understanding of the miRNA pathway in pollen development remains limited, and the dynamic profile of miRNAs in developing pollen is unknown.     

Circulating microRNA signature of steroid‐induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head

Objectives

Steroid‐induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) is a common orthopaedic disease of which early detection remains clinically challenging. Accumulating evidences indicated that circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) plays vital roles in the development of several bone diseases. However, the association between circulating miRNAs and steroid‐induced ONFH remains elusive.

Materials and methods

miRNA microarray was performed to identify the differentially abundant miRNAs in the serums of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients with steroid‐induced ONFH as compared with SLE control and healthy control group. We predicted the potential functions of these differentially abundant miRNAs using Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses and reconstructed the regulatory networks of miRNA‐mRNA interactions.

Results

Our data indicated that there were 11 differentially abundant miRNAs (2 upregulated and 9 downregulated) between SLE‐ONFH group and healthy control group and 42 differentially abundant miRNAs (14 upregulated and 28 downregulated) between SLE‐ONFH group and SLE control group. We also predicted the potential functions of these differentially abundant miRNAs using Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses and reconstructed the regulatory networks of miRNA‐mRNA interactions.

Conclusions

These findings corroborated the idea that circulating miRNAs play significant roles in the development of ONFH and may serve as diagnostic markers and therapeutic targets.     

Prediction and preliminary validation of oncogene regulation by miRNAs

Background  

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are one of the most abundant groups of regulatory genes in multicellular organisms, playing important roles in many fundamental cellular processes. More than four hundred miRNAs have been identified in humans and the deregulation of miRNA expression has been also shown in many cancers. Despite the postulated involvement of miRNAs in tumourigenesis, there are only a few examples where an oncogene or a tumour suppressor has been identified as a miRNA target.     

Identification of clustered microRNAs using an <Emphasis Type="Italic">ab initio</Emphasis> prediction method

Background  

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous 21 to 23-nucleotide RNA molecules that regulate protein-coding gene expression in plants and animals via the RNA interference pathway. Hundreds of them have been identified in the last five years and very recent works indicate that their total number is still larger. Therefore miRNAs gene discovery remains an important aspect of understanding this new and still widely unknown regulation mechanism. Bioinformatics approaches have proved to be very useful toward this goal by guiding the experimental investigations.     

Diverse set of microRNAs are responsive to powdery mildew infection and heat stress in wheat (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Triticum aestivum</Emphasis> L.)

Background  

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding regulatory RNAs that regulate gene expression by guiding target mRNA cleavage or translational inhibition. MiRNAs can have large-scale regulatory effects on development and stress response in plants.     

Detecting microRNA activity from gene expression data

Background  

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression by binding to the messenger RNA (mRNA) of protein coding genes. They control gene expression by either inhibiting translation or inducing mRNA degradation. A number of computational techniques have been developed to identify the targets of miRNAs. In this study we used predicted miRNA-gene interactions to analyse mRNA gene expression microarray data to predict miRNAs associated with particular diseases or conditions.