Research:miRNA

EpubAngerstein C et al. Integration of MicroRNA Databases to Study MicroRNAs Associated with Multiple Sclerosis.Mol Neurobiol. 2012 May 2.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs which regulate many genes post-transcriptionally. In various contexts of medical science, miRNAs gained increasing attention over the last few years. Analyzing the functions, interactions and cellular effects of miRNAs is a very complex and challenging task. Many miRNA databases with diverse data contents have been developed. Here, we demonstrate how to integrate their information in a reasonable way on a set of miRNAs that were found to be dysregulated in the blood of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Using the miR2Disease database, we retrieved 16 miRNAs associated with MS according to four different studies. We studied the predicted and experimentally validated target genes of these miRNAs, their expression profiles in different blood cell types and brain tissues, the pathways and biological processes affected by these miRNAs as well as their regulation by transcription factors. Only miRNA-mRNA interactions that were predicted by at least seven different prediction algorithms were considered. This resulted in a network of 1,498 target genes. In this network, the MS-associated miRNAs hsa-miR-20a-5p and hsa-miR-20b-5p occurred as central hubs regulating about 500 genes each. Strikingly, many of the putative target genes play a role in T cell activation and signaling, and many have transcription factor activity. The latter suggests that miRNAs often act as regulators of regulators with many secondary effects on gene expression. Our present work provides a guideline on how information of different databases can be integrated in the analysis of miRNAs. Future investigations of miRNAs shall help to better understand the mechanisms underlying different diseases and their treatments

DNA codes for the building blocks of life. This first read and made into another molecule called RNA, by a process called translation. The RNA is read to produce an amino acid sequence that makes a protein by a process called transcription. There may be alterations to the basic protein structure called post-translational modification.




A novel class of small ribo nucleic acid (RNA) molecules, microRNAs (miRNAs) has acquired much attention because they regulate the expression of up to 30% of protein-coding genes and may play a pivotal role in the development of many, if not all, complex diseasesMiRNA (microRNA) can influence the action of RNA as we have said before in previous recent posts.

Multiple Sclerosis Research: Research MicroRNA 15 Jan 2012

Multiple Sclerosis Research: Research: MicroRNA in Multiple ... 27 Jan 2012

The actions of genes do no work in isolation but their products work in complex networks. Therefore when you try to unravel genomic studies (the genome = total DNA in body) there is masses of information. Previous studies have identified a number of different miRNA that are associated with the development of MS. By analysisng the actions of the genes that these miRNA may affect, the data suggests that there may be something to do with the immune systemand thus is consistent withstudies looking for MS susceptibility genes that point to an action on the immune system. This therefore has to be part of you idea about how MS develops and progresses.

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