Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Human Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 2 Genetics and Regenerative Medicine Research Centre (GRMRC), Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia; Clinical Genetics Unit, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 3 Department of Human Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia; Genetics and Regenerative Medicine Research Centre (GRMRC), Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
Neural Plast, 2016;2016:1951250.
PMID: 27034842 DOI: 10.1155/2016/1951250

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNA known to regulate brain development. The expression of two novel miRNAs, namely, miR-344b and miR-344c, was characterized during mouse brain developmental stages in this study. In situ hybridization analysis showed that miR-344b and miR-344c were expressed in the germinal layer during embryonic brain developmental stages. In contrast, miR-344b was not detectable in the adult brain while miR-344c was expressed exclusively in the adult olfactory bulb and cerebellar granular layer. Stem-loop RT-qPCR analysis of whole brain RNAs showed that expression of the miR-344b and miR-344c was increased as brain developed throughout the embryonic stage and maintained at adulthood. Further investigation showed that these miRNAs were expressed in adult organs, where miR-344b and miR-344c were highly expressed in pancreas and brain, respectively. Bioinformatics analysis suggested miR-344b and miR-344c targeted Olig2 and Otx2 mRNAs, respectively. However, luciferase experiments demonstrated that these miRNAs did not target Olig2 and Otx2 mRNAs. Further investigation on the locality of miR-344b and miR-344c showed that both miRNAs were localized in nuclei of immature neurons. In conclusion, miR-344b and miR-344c were expressed spatiotemporally during mouse brain developmental stages.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.