MicroRNAs are posttranscriptional regulators of gene expression. MicroRNAs reflect individual biologic adaptation to exposures in the environment. As such, measurement of circulating microRNAs presents an opportunity to evaluate biologic changes associated with behavioral interventions (i.e., exercise, diet) for weight loss. The aim of this study was to perform a systematic review of the litera...

Functional studies of resident microglia require molecular tools for their genetic manipulation. Here we show that microRNA-9-regulated lentiviral vectors can be used for the targeted genetic modification of resident microglia in the rodent brain. Using transgenic reporter mice, we demonstrate that murine microglia lack microRNA-9 activity, whereas most other cells in the brain express microRNA...

Articles in this series • Sessa WC. MicroRNA regulation of cardiovascular functions. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2011;31:2369. • Davis-Dusenbery BN, Wu C, Hata A. Micromanaging vascular smooth muscle cell differentiation and phenotypic modulation. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2011;31:2370–2377. • Fernandez-Hernando C, Moore KJ. MicroRNA modulation of cholesterol homeostasis. Arterioscler T...

A major unmet medical need to better manage Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) is the accurate disease prediction in subjects who show glucose dysmetabolism, but are not yet diagnosed as diabetic. We investigated the possibility to predict/monitor the progression to T2D in these subjects by retrospectively quantifying blood circulating microRNAs in plasma of subjects with i) normal glucose tolerance (NGT, n...

MicroRNAs regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. Differential expression of miRNAs can potentially be used as biomarkers for early diagnosis and prediction for outcomes. Failure in validation of miRNA profiles is often caused by variations in experimental parameters. In this study, the performance of five extraction kits and three RT-qPCR systems were evaluated using BioMar...