Abstract
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a kind of small non-coding RNA molecules that could regulate multiple biological pathways at posttranscriptional level. Over 2,000 miRNAs have so far been discovered in humans, and many of them are found to be linked to various kinds of diseases. Thus, miRNAs are being considered as clinical diagnostic and therapeutic targets. With the discovery of high stability of circulating miRNAs in various kinds of mammalian body fluids, the potential of circulating miRNAs as diagnostic/prognostic biomarkers of infectious diseases aroused great interest among researchers. As far as human diseases are concerned, some biomarkers based on circulating miRNAs have been progressed to clinical application. In veterinary fields, however, this concept is only beginning to come into view. In this review, we summarize an update of preclinical studies on using circulating miRNAs as diagnostic biomarkers to combat infectious diseases that affect domestic animals.
Highlights
MicroRNAs are small, endogenously expressed, non-coding RNA transcripts, about 22 nucleotides in length, with unique sequences targeting mRNAs for posttranscriptional regulation
More and more research literatures have highlighted that alterations in miRNA expression profile were related to a wide range of human diseases, especially in the studies of various cancers [15,16,17]
The remarkable stability of circulating miRNAs in body fluids is considered to be mainly attributed to two mechanisms: [1] circulating miRNAs could form a protein–miRNA complex with argonaute proteins or high-density lipo-proteins and [2] they could incorporate into exosomes [33]
Summary
Hao Dong 1, Qiang Gao 2, Xiaowei Peng 2, Yu Sun, Tao Han 1, Bolin Zhao, Yufu Liu 3, Chuanbin Wang 1, Xiaohui Song 1, Jiajun Wu 1 and Lin Yang 1*. Reviewed by: Yuehua Ke, Institute of Disease Control and Prevention, China Wen-juan Liu, Shandong University, China. Specialty section: This article was submitted to Veterinary Infectious Diseases, a section of the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science
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