MicroRNA Biomarkers for Stroke

Abstract

Stroke is one of the leading cause of death and major cause of long-term disability in the United States. Over years, extensive efforts have been focusing on the development and improvement of diagnostic and therapeutic strategies to reduce stroke-associated neurovascular damages, such as neuronal death, blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction, and brain edema. However, the only clinically approved pharmacological therapy to date for treatment of acute ischemic stroke is still thrombolysis. This is mainly due to the short therapeutic window and the activation of various pathophysiological signaling cascades triggered after ischemic stroke. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small sequences of non-protein-coding RNA (~19 to 25 nt) with a variety of gene regulation functions in eukaryotic cells. Ever since being first reported in the pathogenesis of stroke in 2007, miRNAs have emerged as key mediators of posttranscriptional gene silencing in the pathogenesis of ischemic stroke. Also, preclinical and clinical studies have documented miRNAs as interesting novel drug targets, which led to the development of miRNA mimics and antagomirs as miRNA-based therapies. Stroke also alters miRNA expression profiles in the circulation system, and stroke-associated miRNAs have been proposed as potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers in ischemia stroke. In this chapter, we summarized current knowledge about miRNAs and cerebral ischemia, focusing on the role of miRNAs as biomarkers for stroke and as targets for regulating large sets of genes in related pathways after ischemic stroke.