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microRNAs regulate the expression of over 60% of protein coding genes by targeting their mRNAs to AGO2-containing complexes in the cytoplasm and promoting their translational inhibition and/or degradation. There is little evidence so far for microRNA-mediated regulation of other classes of non-coding RNAs. Here we report that microRNA-9 (miR-9) regulates the expression of the Metastasis Associated Lung Adenocarcinoma Transcript 1 (MALAT-1), one of the most abundant and conserved long non-coding RNAs. Intriguingly, we find that miR-9 targets AGO2-mediated regulation of MALAT1 in the nucleus. Our findings reveal a novel direct regulatory link between two important classes of non-coding RNAs, miRs and lncRNAs, and advance our understanding of microRNA functions.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important post-transcriptional regulators of nearly every biological process in the cell and play key roles in the pathogenesis of human disease. As a result, there are many drug discovery programs that focus on developing miRNA-based therapeutics. The most advanced of these programs targets the liver-expressed miRNA-122 using the locked nucleic acid (LNA)-modified antisense oligonucleotide miravirsen. Here, we describe the discovery of miravirsen, which is currently in phase 2 clinical trials for treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection.

Rationale: Viral myocarditis results from an adverse immune response to cardiotropic viruses, which causes irreversible myocyte destruction and heart failure in previously healthy people. The involvement of microRNAs and their usefulness as therapeutic targets in this process are unknown., Objective: To identify microRNAs involved in viral myocarditis pathogenesis and susceptibility., Methods and Results: Cardiac microRNAs were profiled in both human myocarditis and in Coxsackievirus B3-injected mice, comparing myocarditis-susceptible with nonsusceptible mouse strains longitudinally. MicroRNA responses diverged depending on the susceptibility to myocarditis after viral infection in mice. MicroRNA-155, -146b, and -21 were consistently and strongly upregulated during acute myocarditis in both humans and susceptible mice. We found that microRNA-155 expression during myocarditis was localized primarily in infiltrating macrophages and T lymphocytes. Inhibition of microRNA-155 by a systemically delivered LNA-anti-miR attenuated cardiac infiltration by monocyte-macrophages, decreased T lymphocyte activation, and reduced myocardial damage during acute myocarditis in mice. These changes were accompanied by the derepression of the direct microRNA-155 target PU.1 in cardiac inflammatory cells. Beyond the acute phase, microRNA-155 inhibition reduced mortality and improved cardiac function during 7 weeks of follow-up., Conclusions: Our data show that cardiac microRNA dysregulation is a characteristic of both human and mouse viral myocarditis. The inflammatory microRNA-155 is upregulated during acute myocarditis, contributes to the adverse inflammatory response to viral infection of the heart, and is a potential therapeutic target for viral myocarditis.

microRNAs are non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression. A significant proportion of microRNAs is perfectly conserved across the vertebrate clade, including miR-140, which is specifically expressed in cartilage. Although it has been computationally predicted that a large majority of microRNA targets are conserved, experimental evidence for this hypothesis remains scarce. In this work we use mRNA expression profiles obtained after manipulation of miR-140 activity levels in human and chicken primary chondrocytes to explore the extent of miR-140 target conservation. Our data suggest that miR-140 has a large number of targets conserved between human and chicken and we validate one of these, BMP2. However, we also found a significant number of non-conserved targets in the two species. In addition, we found that a commercially available scrambled siRNA, which is regularly used as a negative control, regulate the accumulation of many genes.

Systemic iron homeostasis is mainly controlled by the liver through synthesis of the peptide hormone hepcidin (encoded by Hamp), the key regulator of duodenal iron absorption and macrophage iron release. Here we show that the liver-specific microRNA miR-122 is important for regulating Hamp mRNA expression and tissue iron levels. Efficient and specific depletion of miR-122 by injection of a locked-nucleic-acid-modified (LNA-modified) anti-miR into WT mice caused systemic iron deficiency, characterized by reduced plasma and liver iron levels, mildly impaired hematopoiesis, and increased extramedullary erythropoiesis in the spleen. Moreover, miR-122 inhibition increased the amount of mRNA transcribed by genes that control systemic iron levels, such as hemochromatosis (Hfe), hemojuvelin (Hjv), bone morphogenetic protein receptor type 1A (Bmpr1a), and Hamp. Importantly, miR-122 directly targeted the 3′ untranslated region of 2 mRNAs that encode activators of hepcidin expression, Hfe and Hjv. These data help to explain the increased Hamp mRNA levels and subsequent iron deficiency in mice with reduced miR-122 levels and establish a direct mechanistic link between miR-122 and the regulation of systemic iron metabolism.

The challenge of understanding the widespread biological roles of animal microRNAs (miRNAs) has prompted the development of genetic and functional genomics technologies for miRNA loss-of-function studies. However, tools for exploring the functions of entire miRNA families are still limited. We developed a method that enables antagonism of miRNA function using seed-targeting 8-mer locked nucleic acid (LNA) oligonucleotides, termed tiny LNAs. Transfection of tiny LNAs into cells resulted in simultaneous inhibition of miRNAs within families sharing the same seed with concomitant upregulation of direct targets. In addition, systemically delivered, unconjugated tiny LNAs showed uptake in many normal tissues and in breast tumors in mice, coinciding with long-term miRNA silencing. Transcriptional and proteomic profiling suggested that tiny LNAs have negligible off-target effects, not significantly altering the output from mRNAs with perfect tiny LNA complementary sites. Considered together, these data support the utility of tiny LNAs in elucidating the functions of miRNA families in vivo.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small 20-22 nt long RNAs which function as post-transcriptional regulators altering the expression of genes either by blocking translation or by destabilizing mRNAs (for recent reviews see, e.g., Zhang et al. (J Cell Physiol, 210:279-289) and Engels and Hutvagner (Oncogene, 25:6163-6169)). A central problem in miRNA biology is to identify the mRNAs regulated by miRNAs - the miRNA targets. A large number (>10) of bioinformatics methods have been developed to address this question, but unfortunately the scarcity of experimentally validated targets makes it hard to objectively judge the performance of the methods (for an attempt see Sethupathy et al. (Nat Methods, 3:881-886). Nevertheless, here I will give some guidelines on how to use the existing tools to find miRNA targets.

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous small RNAs that play a key role in post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in animals and plants. The number of known miRNAs has increased rapidly over the years. The current release (version 14.0) of miRBase, the central online repository for miRNA annotation, comprises over 10.000 miRNA precursors from 115 different species. Furthermore, a large number of decentralized online resources are now available, each contributing with important miRNA annotation and information., Results: We have developed a software framework, designated here as miRMaid, with the goal of integrating miRNA data resources in a uniform web service interface that can be accessed and queried by researchers and, most importantly, by computers. miRMaid is built around data from miRBase and is designed to follow the official miRBase data releases. It exposes miRBase data as inter-connected web services. Third-party miRNA data resources can be modularly integrated as miRMaid plugins or they can loosely couple with miRMaid as individual entities in the World Wide Web. miRMaid is available as a public web service but is also easily installed as a local application. The software framework is freely available under the LGPL open source license for academic and commercial use., Conclusion: miRMaid is an intuitive and modular software platform designed to unify miRBase and independent miRNA data resources. It enables miRNA researchers to computationally address complex questions involving the multitude of miRNA data resources. Furthermore, miRMaid constitutes a basic framework for further programming in which microRNA-interested bioinformaticians can readily develop their own tools and data sources.

The liver-expressed microRNA-122 (miR-122) is essential for hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA accumulation in cultured liver cells, but its potential as a target for antiviral intervention has not been assessed. We found that treatment of chronically infected chimpanzees with a locked nucleic acid (LNA)-modified oligonucleotide (SPC3649) complementary to miR-122 leads to long-lasting suppression of HCV viremia, with no evidence of viral resistance or side effects in the treated animals. Furthermore, transcriptome and histological analyses of liver biopsies demonstrated derepression of target mRNAs with miR-122 seed sites, down-regulation of interferon-regulated genes, and improvement of HCV-induced liver pathology. The prolonged virological response to SPC3649 treatment without HCV rebound holds promise of a new antiviral therapy with a high barrier to resistance.

MicroRNAs (miRNA) comprise an abundant class of small noncoding RNAs that act as important posttranscriptional regulators of gene expression. Accumulating evidence showing that aberrantly expressed miRNAs play important roles in human cancers underscores them as potential targets for therapeutic intervention. Recent reports on efficient miRNA silencing in rodents and nonhuman primates using high-affinity targeting by chemically modified antisense oligonucleotides highlight the utility of such compounds in the development of miRNA-based cancer therapeutics.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short noncoding RNA molecules regulating the expression of mRNAs. Target identification of miRNAs is computationally difficult due to the relatively low homology between miRNAs and their targets. We present here an experimental approach to target identification where the cartilage-specific miR-140 was overexpressed and silenced in cells it is normally expressed in separate experiments. Expression of mRNAs was profiled in both experiments and the intersection of mRNAs repressed by miR-140 overexpression and derepressed by silencing of miR-140 was identified. The intersection contained only 49 genes, although both treatments affected the accumulation of hundreds of mRNAs. These 49 genes showed a very strong enrichment for the miR-140 seed sequence implying that the approach is efficient and specific. Twenty-one of these 49 genes were predicted to be direct targets based on the presence of the seed sequence. Interestingly, none of these were predicted by the published target prediction methods we used. One of the potential target mRNAs, Cxcl12, was experimentally validated by Northern blot analysis and a luciferase reporter assay.

miRNAs (microRNAs) comprise a class of small endogenous non-coding RNAs that post-transcriptionally repress gene expression by base-pairing with their target mRNAs. Recent evidence has shown that miRNAs play important roles in a wide variety of human diseases, such as viral infections, cancer and cardiovascular diseases, and thus miRNAs have rapidly emerged as potential targets for therapeutics. LNAs (locked nucleic acids) comprise a class of bicyclic conformational analogues of RNA, which exhibit high binding affinity to complementary RNA molecules and high stability in blood and tissues in vivo. Recent reports on LNA-mediated miRNA silencing in rodents and primates support the potential of LNA-modified oligonucleotides in studying miRNA functions in vivo and in the future development of miRNA-based therapeutics.

microRNAs (miRNAs) are small regulatory RNAs that are important in development and disease and therefore represent a potential new class of targets for therapeutic intervention. Despite recent progress in silencing of miRNAs in rodents, the development of effective and safe approaches for sequence-specific antagonism of miRNAs in vivo remains a significant scientific and therapeutic challenge. Moreover, there are no reports of miRNA antagonism in primates. Here we show that the simple systemic delivery of a unconjugated, PBS-formulated locked-nucleic-acid-modified oligonucleotide (LNA-antimiR) effectively antagonizes the liver-expressed miR-122 in non-human primates. Acute administration by intravenous injections of 3 or 10 mg kg(-1) LNA-antimiR to African green monkeys resulted in uptake of the LNA-antimiR in the cytoplasm of primate hepatocytes and formation of stable heteroduplexes between the LNA-antimiR and miR-122. This was accompanied by depletion of mature miR-122 and dose-dependent lowering of plasma cholesterol. Efficient silencing of miR-122 was achieved in primates by three doses of 10 mg kg(-1) LNA-antimiR, leading to a long-lasting and reversible decrease in total plasma cholesterol without any evidence for LNA-associated toxicities or histopathological changes in the study animals. Our findings demonstrate the utility of systemically administered LNA-antimiRs in exploring miRNA function in rodents and primates, and support the potential of these compounds as a new class of therapeutics for disease-associated miRNAs.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a novel class of small endogenous non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally by binding to their cognate target mRNAs. Emerging evidence implies that miRNAs play important roles in cancer and thus, miRNAs have rapidly emerged as valuable markers for cancer diagnostics and promising targets for therapeutics. Locked nucleic acid (LNA) is a conformational RNA analoque that binds complementary RNA with unprecedented affinity and specificity. These properties make LNA well suited for miRNA detection and analysis for cancer diagnostics. Furthermore, recent studies on LNA-mediated silencing of miRNA function in vitro and in vivo support the potential of LNA in therapeutic intervention of cancer-associated miRNAs.

MicroRNA-122 (miR-122) is an abundant liver-specific miRNA, implicated in fatty acid and cholesterol metabolism as well as hepatitis C viral replication. Here, we report that a systemically administered 16-nt, unconjugated LNA (locked nucleic acid)-antimiR oligonucleotide complementary to the 5' end of miR-122 leads to specific, dose-dependent silencing of miR-122 and shows no hepatotoxicity in mice. Antagonism of miR-122 is due to formation of stable heteroduplexes between the LNA-antimiR and miR-122 as detected by northern analysis. Fluorescence in situ hybridization demonstrated uptake of the LNA-antimiR in mouse liver cells, which was accompanied by markedly reduced hybridization signals for mature miR-122 in treated mice. Functional antagonism of miR-122 was inferred from a low cholesterol phenotype and de-repression within 24 h of 199 liver mRNAs showing significant enrichment for miR-122 seed matches in their 3' UTRs. Expression profiling extended to 3 weeks after the last LNA-antimiR dose revealed that most of the changes in liver gene expression were normalized to saline control levels coinciding with normalized miR-122 and plasma cholesterol levels. Combined, these data suggest that miRNA antagonists comprised of LNA are valuable tools for identifying miRNA targets in vivo and for studying the biological role of miRNAs and miRNA-associated gene-regulatory networks in a physiological context.

MicroRNAs are emerging as important regulators of cancer-related processes. The miR-21 microRNA is overexpressed in a wide variety of cancers and has been causally linked to cellular proliferation, apoptosis, and migration. Inhibition of mir-21 in MCF-7 breast cancer cells causes reduced cell growth. Using array expression analysis of MCF-7 cells depleted of miR-21, we have identified mRNA targets of mir-21 and have shown a link between miR-21 and the p53 tumor suppressor protein. We furthermore found that the tumor suppressor protein Programmed Cell Death 4 (PDCD4) is regulated by miR-21 and demonstrated that PDCD4 is a functionally important target for miR-21 in breast cancer cells.

microRNAs (miRNAs) are important post-transcriptional regulators, but the extent of this regulation is uncertain, both with regard to the number of miRNA genes and their targets. Using an algorithm based on intragenomic matching of potential miRNAs and their targets coupled with support vector machine classification of miRNA precursors, we explore the potential for regulation by miRNAs in three plant genomes: Arabidopsis thaliana, Populus trichocarpa, and Oryza sativa. We find that the intragenomic matching in conjunction with a supervised learning approach contains enough information to allow reliable computational prediction of miRNA candidates without requiring conservation across species. Using this method, we identify approximately 1,200, approximately 2,500, and approximately 2,100 miRNA candidate genes capable of extensive base-pairing to potential target mRNAs in A. thaliana, P. trichocarpa, and O. sativa, respectively. This is more than five times the number of currently annotated miRNAs in the plants. Many of these candidates are derived from repeat regions, yet they seem to contain the features necessary for correct processing by the miRNA machinery. Conservation analysis indicates that only a few of the candidates are conserved between the species. We conclude that there is a large potential for miRNA-mediated regulatory interactions encoded in the genomes of the investigated plants. We hypothesize that some of these interactions may be realized under special environmental conditions, while others can readily be recruited when organisms diverge and adapt to new niches.

Background: Protein encoding genes have long been the major targets for research in schizophrenia genetics. However, with the identification of regulatory microRNAs (miRNAs) as important in brain development and function, miRNAs genes have emerged as candidates for schizophrenia-associated genetic factors. Indeed, the growing understanding of the regulatory properties and pleiotropic effects that miRNA have on molecular and cellular mechanisms, suggests that alterations in the interactions between miRNAs and their mRNA targets may contribute to phenotypic variation., Methodology/principal Findings: We have studied the association between schizophrenia and genetic variants of miRNA genes associated with brain-expression using a case-control study design on three Scandinavian samples. Eighteen known SNPs within or near brain-expressed miRNAs in three samples (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian: 420/163/257 schizophrenia patients and 1006/177/293 control subjects), were analyzed. Subsequently, joint analysis of the three samples was performed on SNPs showing marginal association. Two SNPs rs17578796 and rs1700 in hsa-mir-206 (mir-206) and hsa-mit-198 (mir-198) showed nominal significant allelic association to schizophrenia in the Danish and Norwegian sample respectively (P = 0.0021 & p = 0.038), of which only rs17578796 was significant in the joint sample. In-silico analysis revealed that 8 of the 15 genes predicted to be regulated by both mir-206 and mir-198, are transcriptional targets or interaction partners of the JUN, ATF2 and TAF1 connected in a tight network. JUN and two of the miRNA targets (CCND2 and PTPN1) in the network have previously been associated with schizophrenia., Conclusions/significance: We found nominal association between brain-expressed miRNAs and schizophrenia for rs17578796 and rs1700 located in mir-206 and mir-198 respectively. These two miRNAs have a surprising large number (15) of targets in common, eight of which are also connected by the same transcription factors.

In 2001 there were four PubMed entries matching the word "microRNA" (miRNA). Interestingly, this number has now far exceeded 1300 and is still rapidly increasing. This more than anything demonstrates the extreme attention this field has had within a short period of time. With the large amounts of sequence data being generated, the need for analysis by computational approaches is obvious. Here, we review the general principles used in computational gene and target finding, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the methods. Several methods rely on detection of evolutionary conserved candidates, but recent methods have challenged this paradigm by simultaneously searching for the gene and the corresponding target(s). Whereas the early methods made predictions based on sets of hand-derived rules from precursor-miRNA structure or observed target-miRNA interactions, recent methods apply machine learning techniques. Even though these methods are already powerful, the amount of data they rely on is still limited. Since it is evident that data are continuously being generated, it must be anticipated that these methods will further improve their performance.

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNA) are small (20-25 nt) non-coding RNA molecules that regulate gene expression through interaction with mRNA in plants and metazoans. A few hundred miRNAs are known or predicted, and most of those are evolutionarily conserved. In general plant miRNA are different from their animal counterpart: most plant miRNAs show near perfect complementarity to their targets. Exploiting this complementarity we have developed a method for identification plant miRNAs that does not rely on phylogenetic conservation., Results: Using the presumed targets for the known miRNA as positive controls, we list and filter all segments of the genome of length approximately 20 that are complementary to a target mRNA-transcript. From the positive control we recover 41 (of 92 possible) of the already known miRNA-genes (representing 14 of 16 families) with only four false positives. Applying the procedure to find possible new miRNAs targeting any annotated mRNA, we predict of 592 new miRNA genes, many of which are not conserved in other plant genomes. A subset of our predicted miRNAs is additionally supported by having more than one target that are not homologues., Conclusion: These results indicate that it is possible to reliably predict miRNA-genes without using genome comparisons. Furthermore it suggests that the number of plant miRNAs have been underestimated and points to the existence of recently evolved miRNAs in Arabidopsis.