Identification of Mouse Serum miRNA Endogenous References by Global Gene Expression Profiles

Qing-Sheng Mi,Li Zhou,Rui-Qun Qi,Matthew Weiland,Laila M Poisson,Xing-Hua Gao,Judith Homberg

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031278

Qing-Sheng Mi, Li Zhou + Show 5 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031278

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Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are recently discovered small non-coding RNAs and can serve as serum biomarkers for disease diagnosis and prognoses. Lack of reliable serum miRNA endogenous references for normalization in miRNA gene expression makes single miRNA assays inaccurate. Using TaqMan® real-time PCR miRNA arrays with a global gene expression normalization strategy, we have analyzed serum miRNA expression profiles of 20 female mice of NOD/ShiLtJ (n = 8), NOR/LtJ (n = 6), and C57BL/6J (n = 6) at different ages and disease conditions. We identified five miRNAs, miR-146a, miR-16, miR-195, miR-30e and miR-744, to be stably expressed in all strains, which could serve as mouse serum miRNA endogenous references for single assay experiments.

Highlights

MicroRNAs are a recently discovered class of 21– 25 nt single stranded non-coding RNAs, which are widely expressed in plants, animals, and humans, and function through translational repression of specific target mRNAs
Identification of serum miRNA endogenous references Our data is based on 20 serum miRNA expression profiles from
In order to be considered as potential endogenous references, only those miRNAs that had an analysis of variance (ANOVA) p.0.3 for the comparison of the B6, NOD, and NOR (n = 20) mouse strains were selected

Summary

Introduction

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a recently discovered class of 21– 25 nt single stranded non-coding RNAs, which are widely expressed in plants, animals, and humans, and function through translational repression of specific target mRNAs. The potential use of circulating nucleic acids extended to disease diagnosis much later, when increased levels of serum DNA distinguished cancer patients from healthy controls [9]. Recent studies have demonstrated that serum and plasma contain a large amount of stable miRNAs and have potential to serve as biomarkers for changes in physiological and pathological conditions, such as pregnancy, cancer, and other diseases [12,13,14,15,16]. Circulating miRNAs show remarkable stability and demonstrate consistent expression profiles between healthy controls and patients [12,13,15,16]. Most studies have focused on using circulating miRNAs as biomarkers in human, circulating miRNAs in rodent models are able to distinguish healthy animals from diseased animals as well [14,17,18,19]

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