MicroRNAs in Cardiovascular Biology and Heart Disease

Abstract

Abstract-MicroRNAs play important roles in many cellular and biological functions via the regulation of mRNA target translation. In the cardiovascular field, microRNAs are now acknowledged as fundamental in regulating the expression of genes that governs physiological and pathological myocardial adaptation to stress. Here, we review recent progress in the understanding of microRNA functions and their involvement in heart disease. (Circ Cardiovasc Genet. 2009;2: 402-408.)

Engineered microRNA therapeutics

“…[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] A number of distinct human disease states could be treated with engineered microRNA therapeutics including multiple liver diseases where hepatocyte function has been dysregulated, 3,19,22 cardiac ischemia and other related complications in the heart, 11,13,16 fibrosis in multiple tissue types, 17,18,25 inflammatory disease states such as rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory conditions with macrophage involvement, 15 and in various cancers. 14,20,23,26 For the sake of brevity, miR-122 and miR-21 will be used as examples of validated microRNA targets.…”

Biological Pacemaker – Main Ideas and Optimization

“…They bind to the 3' untranslated region (3'-UTR) of the target genes and inhibit the transcription of the gene expression (Catalucci et al, 2009). Although the working mechanisms of the miRs are still poorly understood, recent works have demonstrated a significant potential of the www.intechopen.com endogenous miRs in the treatment of heart diseases such as coronary artery disease and heart failure (Callis & Wang, 2008;van Rooij et al, 2008;Catalucci et al, 2009). The muscle specific forms of miR-1 and miR-133 have been demonstrated to be pivotal in the development of hypertrophy and arrhythmias (Care et al, 2007;Yang et al, 2007).…”

MiR-21 confers resistance against CVB3-induced myocarditis by inhibiting PDCD4-mediated apoptosis

“…As part of a multi-protein complex known as RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC), miRNAs can silence the expression of multiple targets by partially complementing the 3' untranslated region (UTR) of target mRNA. Emerging evidence suggests that miRNAs are involved in many fundamental myocardial physiological and pathological processes [11][12][13][14] by regulating apoptosis [15,16], vascularity [17] or cardiogenic di erentiation [18]. Altered microRNA expression patterns could be applied as a new biomarker and diagnostic tool [19], and manipulating miRNAs might be an attractive therapeutic strategy [20,21], since they target genes speci cally and are easy to manipulate with speci c mimics or inhibitors.…”