Medulloblastoma is an aggressive childhood brain tumor with poor prognosis. Recent studies indicate that dys-regulation of microRNA expression plays important roles in tumorigenesis. By comparing microRNA levels between mouse medulloblastoma and normal cerebellar tissues, we identified a set of down-regulated microRNAs including miR-31. Here, we show that the genomic region surrounding human mi...

OBJECTIVE Bkv-miR-B1-5p, one of the microRNAs encoded by BK virus, was recently reported to be elevated in the blood among the patients with BK virus nephropathy (BKVN). Urinary exosome was suggested to be a possible source of biomarker for kidney diseases, but it was unknown whether it could contain viral microRNA as well as human microRNAs. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether urinar...

OBJECTIVE MicroRNA plays important roles in vascular biology, but the regulation of endothelial-specific microRNA is not well characterized. MicroRNA-126 (miR-126) is highly expressed in endothelial cells, and it regulates angiogenesis and vascular inflammation. Here we show that the transcription factors Ets-1 and Ets-2 regulate miR-126 expression. METHODS AND RESULTS A genomic region betwee...

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most frequently diagnosed malignant human glioma, and current median patient survival is less than two years despite maximal surgery followed by temozolomide chemoradiation therapies. Novel microRNA-related therapies are now being developed for cancers such as GBM. Differential microRNA expression profiling revealed that miR-100 expression is down-regulated in GBM comp...

Although molecular components of the circadian clock are known, mechanisms that transmit signals from the clock and produce rhythmic behavior are poorly understood. We find that the microRNA miR-279 regulates the JAK/STAT pathway to drive rest:activity rhythms in Drosophila. Overexpression of microRNA miR-279 or miR-279 deletion attenuates rest:activity rhythms. Oscillations of the clock protei...

Objective(s): microRNA-29 (miR-29) family miRNAs have been mentioned as tumor suppressive genes in several human cancers. The purpose of this study was to investigate the function of miR-29a in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) cells. Materials and Methods: Human NPC cell line 5-8F was transfected with mimic, inhibitor or scrambled controls...

A large fraction of mammalian genomes is transcribed into noncoding RNAs. 1 Despite the prevalence in the genome, up until recently, noncoding RNAs were regarded as junk RNAs that do not code for protein and, thereby, have no biological purpose. However, over the past decade, it has become increasingly evident that noncoding RNAs can and do serve important regulatory functions in pathophysiolog...

Evolutionarily conserved short (20-30 nucleotides) noncoding RNAs (microRNAs) are powerful regulators of gene expression in a variety of physiological and pathological processes. As such, means to efficiently modulate microRNA function constitute an important therapeutic opportunity. Here we demonstrate that primary B lymphocytes can be genetically programmed with nonviral plasmid DNA for the b...

CYP3A4 metabolizes many drugs on the market. Although transcriptional regulation of CYP3A4 is known to be tightly controlled by some nuclear receptors (NR) including vitamin D receptor (VDR/NR1I1), posttranscriptional regulation of CYP3A4 remains elusive. In this study, we show that noncoding microRNAs (miRNAs) may control posttranscriptional and transcriptional regulation of CYP3A4 by directly...