Characterization of microRNA expression profiles and the discovery of novel microRNAs involved in cancer during human embryonic development

MicroRNAs (miRNAs), approximately 22-nucleotide non-coding RNA molecules, regulate a variety of pivotal physiological or pathological processes, including embryonic development and tumorigenesis. To obtain comprehensive expression profiles of miRNAs in human embryos, we characterized miRNA expressio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2013-08, Vol.8 (8), p.e69230-e69230
Main Authors: Lin, Yi, Zeng, Yan, Zhang, Fan, Xue, Lu, Huang, Zan, Li, Wenxin, Guo, Mingxiong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
B cells
Biomarkers, Tumor - genetics
Cancer
Cell cycle
Development and progression
Developmental biology
Down syndrome
Embryo, Mammalian - cytology
Embryo, Mammalian - physiology
Embryogenesis
Embryonic development
Embryonic growth stage
Embryos
Gene expression
Gene Expression Profiling
Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental
Humans
Hybridization
Laboratories
Life sciences
Metastasis
MicroRNA
MicroRNAs
MicroRNAs - genetics
miRNA
Neoplasms - genetics
Non-coding RNA
Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis
Protection and preservation
Ribonucleic acid
RNA
Studies
Tissue Array Analysis
Tissues
Tumorigenesis
Tumors
Variance analysis
Virology
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Summary:MicroRNAs (miRNAs), approximately 22-nucleotide non-coding RNA molecules, regulate a variety of pivotal physiological or pathological processes, including embryonic development and tumorigenesis. To obtain comprehensive expression profiles of miRNAs in human embryos, we characterized miRNA expression in weeks 4-6 of human embryonic development using miRNA microarrays and identified 50 human-embryo-specific miRNAs (HES-miRNAs). Furthermore, we selected three non-conserved or primate-specific miRNAs, hsa-miR-638, -720, and -1280, and examined their expression levels in various normal and tumor tissues. The results show that expression of most miRNAs is extremely low during early human embryonic development. In addition, the expression of some non-conserved or primate-specific miRNAs is significantly different between tumor and the corresponding normal tissue samples, suggesting that the miRNAs are closely related to the pathological processes of various tumors. This study presents the first comprehensive overview of miRNA expression during human embryonic development and offers immediate evidence of the relationship between human early embryonic development and tumorigenesis.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0069230