In heart failure (HF), arrhythmogenic spontaneous sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca(2+) release and afterdepolarizations in cardiac myocytes have been linked to abnormally high activity of ryanodine receptors (RyR2s) associated with enhanced phosphorylation of the channel. However, the specific molecular mechanisms underlying RyR2 hyperphosphorylation in HF remain poorly understood. The objective ...

Altered microRNA expression is implicated in cardiovascular diseases. Our objective was to determine microRNA signatures in thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAAs) and abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) compared with control non-aneurysmal aortic specimens. We evaluated the expression of fifteen selected microRNA in human TAA and AAA operative specimens compared to controls. We observed significant upr...

BACKGROUND Cardiac hypertrophy associated with various cardiovascular diseases results in heart failure and sudden death. A clear understanding of the mechanisms of hypertrophy will benefit the development of novel therapies. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown to play essential roles in many biological process, however, whether lncRNA-ROR plays functional roles in the reprogramming ...

Cell fate decisions of pluripotent embryonic stem (ES) cells are dictated by activation and repression of lineage-specific genes. Numerous signaling and transcriptional networks progressively narrow and specify the potential of ES cells. Whether specific microRNAs help refine and limit gene expression and, thereby, could be used to manipulate ES cell differentiation has largely been unexplored....

Pacu (Piaractus mesopotamicus) is a Brazilian fish with a high economic value in pisciculture due to its rusticity and fast growth. Postnatal growth of skeletal muscle in fish occurs by hyperplasia and/or hypertrophy, processes that are dependent on the proliferation and differentiation of myoblasts. A class of small noncoding RNAs, known as microRNAs (miRNAs), represses the expression of targe...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding small miRNAs ~22 nucleotides in length and play a vital role in muscle development by binding to messenger RNAs (mRNAs). Large White (LW, a lean type pig) and Meishan pigs (MS, a Chinese indigenous obese breed) have significant postnatal phenotype differences in growth rate, muscle mass and meat quality, and these differences are programmed during prenatal musc...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a recently discovered class of approximately 22-nucleotide regulatory RNAs that post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression. We have recently demonstrated that muscle-specific miRNAs miR-1 and miR-133 play an important role in modulating muscle proliferation and differentiation. Here, we investigate the involvement of miRNAs in cardiac hypertrophy. We analyzed the glo...

MicroRNAs (miRs) are small, noncoding RNAs that posttranscriptionally control gene expression by inhibiting protein translation or inducing target mRNA destabilization. Besides their intracellular function, recent studies demonstrate that miRs can be exported or released by cells and circulate with the blood in a remarkably stable form. The discovery of circulating miRs opens up intriguing poss...