Discovery and characterization of the feline miRNAome

Alessandro Laganà,Ayse Selen Yilmaz,James D Feller,Hatice G Ozer,Carlo M Croce,Kiersten A Vala,Wachiraphan Supsavhad,Wessel P Dirksen,Thomas J Rosol

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-10164-w

Abstract

The domestic cat is an important human companion animal that can also serve as a relevant model for ~250 genetic diseases, many metabolic and degenerative conditions, and forms of cancer that are analogous to human disorders. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play a crucial role in many biological processes and their dysregulation has a significant impact on important cellular pathways and is linked to a variety of diseases. While many species already have a well-defined and characterized miRNAome, miRNAs have not been carefully studied in cats. As a result, there are no feline miRNAs present in the reference miRNA databases, diminishing the usefulness of medical research on spontaneous disease in cats for applicability to both feline and human disease. This study was undertaken to define and characterize the cat miRNAome in normal feline tissues. High-throughput sequencing was performed on 12 different normal cat tissues. 271 candidate feline miRNA precursors, encoding a total of 475 mature sequences, were identified, including several novel cat-specific miRNAs. Several analyses were performed to characterize the discovered miRNAs, including tissue distribution of the precursors and mature sequences, genomic distribution of miRNA genes and identification of clusters, and isomiR characterization. Many of the miRNAs were regulated in a tissue/organ-specific manner.

Highlights

MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs that act as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression
MiRNAs play a crucial role in many biological processes and pathways, such as apoptosis, cell cycle and proliferation, and their dysregulation is linked to a variety of diseases, including heart diseases, neurological disorders, kidney diseases and cancer[5,6,7,8]
MiRDeep[2] analysis returned 1182 putative miRNA precursors, but only 378 of them had a score above the chosen minimum threshold of 5 and these were further processed by our in-house pipeline

Summary

Introduction

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that act as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression Their mature form (≅18–22 nt long) is incorporated into a protein complex called RISC (RNA-induced silencing complex) to which they confer binding specificity to target mRNA molecules . Cats have metabolic and degenerative disorders and forms of cancer that mimic human conditions This suggests that veterinary clinical research using novel drug, genetic, and interventional therapies to improve the outcome of diseased cats may inform or translate research findings for the benefit of humans. 271 candidate feline miRNA precursors, encoding a total of 475 mature sequences were identified, including several novel cat-specific miRNAs. In this study, high-throughput sequencing was performed on 12 different normal cat tissues. Many of these miRNAs are regulated in a tissue-specific manner

Methods

Results

Conclusion