Adam P. Carroll

Schizophrenia is associated with an increase in cortical microRNA biogenesis

MicroRNA expression profiling and quantitative reverse transcription-PCR analysis of the superior temporal gyrus and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex revealed a significant schizophrenia-associated increase in global microRNA expression. This change was associated with an elevation of primary microRNA processing and corresponded with an increase in the microprocessor component DGCR8. The biological implications for this extensive increase in gene silencing are profound, and were exemplified by members of the miR-15 family and other related microRNA, which were significantly upregulated in both brain regions. This functionally convergent influence is overrepresented in pathways involved in synaptic plasticity and includes many genes and pathways associated with schizophrenia, some of which were substantiated in vitro by reporter gene assay. Given the magnitude of microRNA changes and their wide sphere of influence, this phenomenon could represent an important dimension in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.

Dysregulation of miRNA 181b in the temporal cortex in schizophrenia

Analysis of global microRNA (miRNA) expression in postmortem cortical grey matter from the superior temporal gyrus, revealed significant up-regulation of miR-181b expression in schizophrenia. This finding was supported by quantitative real-time RT-PCR analysis of miRNA expression in a cohort of 21 matched pairs of schizophrenia and non-psychiatric controls. The implications of this finding are substantial, as this miRNA is predicted to regulate many target genes with potential significance to the development of schizophrenia. They include the calcium sensor gene visinin-like 1 (VSNL1) and the ionotropic AMPA glutamate receptor subunit (GRIA2), which were found to be down-regulated in the same cortical tissue from the schizophrenia group. Both of these genes were also suppressed in miR-181b transfected cells and shown to contain functional miR-181b miRNA recognition elements by reporter gene assay. This study suggests altered miRNA levels could be a significant factor in the dysregulation of cortical gene expression in schizophrenia.

MicroRNAs miR-17 and miR-20a inhibit T cell activation genes and are under-expressed in MS whole blood.

It is well established that Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an immune mediated disease. Little is known about what drives the differential control of the immune system in MS patients compared to unaffected individuals. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding nucleic acids that are involved in the control of gene expression. Their potential role in T cell activation and neurodegenerative disease has recently been recognised and they are therefore excellent candidates for further studies in MS. We investigated the transcriptome of currently known miRNAs using miRNA microarray analysis in peripheral blood samples of 59 treatment naïve MS patients and 37 controls. Of these 59, 18 had a primary progressive, 17 a secondary progressive and 24 a relapsing remitting disease course. In all MS subtypes miR-17 and miR-20a were significantly under-expressed in MS, confirmed by RT-PCR. We demonstrate that these miRNAs modulate T cell activation genes in a knock-in and knock-down T cell model. The same T cell activation genes are also up-regulated in MS whole blood mRNA, suggesting these miRNAs or their analogues may provide useful targets for new therapeutic approaches.

Down-regulation of miR-17 family expression in response to retinoic acid induced neuronal differentiation

Whole-genome microRNA and gene expression analyses were used to monitor changes during retinoic acid induced differentiation of neuroblasts in vitro. Interestingly, the entire miR-17 family was over-represented among the down-regulated miRNA. The implications of these changes are considerable, as target gene prediction suggests that the miR-17 family is involved in the regulation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway, synaptic plasticity and other markers of neuronal differentiation. Significantly, many of the target responses predicted by changes in miRNA expression were supported by the observed changes in gene expression. As expected, markers of neuronal differentiation such as anti-apoptotic protein B-cell lymphoma 2 (BCL2), myocyte enhancer factor-2D (MEF2D) and zipper protein kinase (MAP3K12; aka ZPK/MUK/DLK) were each up-regulated in response to differentiation. The expression of these genes was also reduced in response to miR-17 and miR-20a transfection, and more specifically they were also shown to contain functional miRNA recognition elements for members of the miR-17 family by reporter gene assay. This suggests that the miR-17 family have an integral role in fine-tuning the pathways involved in the regulation of neuronal differentiation.

A parallel genome-wide mRNA and microRNA profiling of the frontal cortex of HIV patients with and without HIV-associated dementia shows the role of axon guidance and downstream pathways in HIV-mediated neurodegeneration

BackgroundHIV-associated dementia (HAD) is the most common dementia type in young adults less than 40 years of age. Although the neurotoxins, oxidative/metabolic stress and impaired activity of neurotrophic factors are believed to be underlying reasons for the development of HAD, the genomic basis, which ultimately defines the virus-host interaction and leads to neurologic manifestation of HIV disease is lacking. Therefore, identifying HIV fingerprints on the host gene machinery and its regulation by microRNA holds a great promise and potential for improving our understanding of HAD pathogenesis, its diagnosis and therapy.ResultsA parallel profiling of mRNA and miRNA of the frontal cortex autopsies from HIV positive patients with and without dementia was performed using Illumina Human-6 BeadChip and Affymetrix version 1.0 miRNA array, respectively. The gene ontology and pathway analysis of the two data sets showed high concordance between miRNA and mRNAs, revealing significant interference with the host axon guidance and its downstream signalling pathways in HAD brains. Moreover, the differentially expressed (DE) miRNAs identified in this study, in particular miR-137, 153 and 218, based on which most correlations were built cumulatively targeted neurodegeneration related pathways, implying their future potential in diagnosis, prognosis and possible therapies for HIV-mediated and possibly other neurodegenerative diseases. Furthermore, this relationship between DE miRNAs and DE mRNAs was also reflected in correlation analysis using Bayesian networks by splitting-averaging strategy (SA-BNs), which revealed 195 statistically significant correlated miRNA-mRNA pairs according to Pearson’s correlation test (P<0.05).ConclusionsOur study provides the first evidence on unambiguous support for intrinsic functional relationship between mRNA and miRNA in the context of HIV-mediated neurodegeneration, which shows that neurologic manifestation in HIV patients possibly occurs through the interference with the host axon guidance and its downstream signalling pathways. These data provide an excellent avenue for the development of new generation of diagnostic/prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic intervention strategies for HIV-associated neurodegeneration.

Context-specific microRNA function in developmental complexity

Since their discovery, microRNAs (miRNA) have been implicated in a vast array of biological processes in animals, from fundamental developmental functions including cellular proliferation and differentiation, to more complex and specialized roles such as long-term potentiation and synapse-specific modifications in neurons. This review recounts the history behind this paradigm shift, which has seen small non-coding RNA molecules coming to the forefront of molecular biology, and introduces their role in establishing developmental complexity in animals. The fundamental mechanisms of miRNA biogenesis and function are then considered, leading into a discussion of recent discoveries transforming our understanding of how these molecules regulate gene network behaviour throughout developmental and pathophysiological processes. The emerging complexity of this mechanism is also examined with respect to the influence of cellular context on miRNA function. This discussion highlights the absolute imperative for experimental designs to appreciate the significance of context-specific factors when determining what genes are regulated by a particular miRNA. Moreover, by establishing the timing, location, and mechanism of these regulatory events, we may ultimately understand the true biological function of a specific miRNA in a given cellular environment.

Genome-wide mRNA and miRNA analysis of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) reveals different miRNAs regulating HIV/HCV co-infection

Co-infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) is common due to shared transmission routes. The genomic basis of HIV/HCV co-infection and its regulation by microRNA (miRNA) is unknown. Therefore, our objective was to investigate genome-wide mRNA expression and its regulation by miRNA in primary PBMCs derived from 27 patients (5 HCV - mono-infected, 5 HIV-mono-infected, 12 HCV/HIV co-infected, and 5 healthy controls). This revealed 27 miRNAs and 476 mRNAs as differentially expressed (DE) in HCV/HIV co-infection when compared to controls (adj p<0.05). Our study shows the first evidence of miRNAs specific for co-infection, several of which are correlated with key gene targets demonstrating functional relationships to pathways in cancer, immune-function, and metabolism. Notable was the up regulation of HCV-specific miR-122 in co-infection (FC>50, p=4.02E-06), which may have clinical/biological implications.

Understanding principles of miRNA target recognition and function through integrated biological and bioinformatics approaches.

In recent times, microRNA (miRNA) have emerged as primary regulators of fundamental biological processes including cellular differentiation, proliferation, apoptosis, as well as synaptic plasticity. However, miRNAs bind their targets with only partial complementarity, making it very challenging to determine exactly how a miRNA is functioning in specific biological environments. This review discusses key principles of miRNA target recognition and function which have emerged through the progressive advancement of biological and bioinformatics approaches. Ultimately, the integration of gene expression and biochemical methods with sequence‐ and systems‐based bioinformatics approaches will reveal profound insights regarding the importance of target contextual features in determining miRNA target recognition and regulatory outcome, as well as the importance of RNA interaction networks in enabling miRNA to regulate different target genes and functions in specific biological contexts. There is therefore a demand for the elegant design of future experiments such that principles of context‐specific miRNA target recognition and regulatory outcome can be accurately modeled in normal developmental and disease states.

Alternative mRNA fates identified in microRNA-associated transcriptome analysis

BackgroundMicroRNA (miRNA) are small non-coding RNA molecules which function as nucleic acid-based specificity factors in the universal RNA binding complex known as the RNA induced silencing complex (RISC). In the canonical gene-silencing pathway, these activated RISC particles are associated with RNA decay and gene suppression, however, there is evidence to suggest that in some circumstances they may also stabilise their target RNA and even enhance translation. To further explore the role of miRNA in this context, we performed a genome-wide expression analysis to investigate the molecular consequences of bidirectional modulation of the disease-associated miRNAs miR-181b and miR-107 in multiple human cell lines.ResultsThis data was subjected to pathways analysis and correlated against miRNA targets predicted through seed region homology. This revealed a large number of both conserved and non-conserved miRNA target genes, a selection of which were functionally validated through reporter gene assays. Contrary to expectation we also identified a significant proportion of predicted target genes with both conserved and non-conserved recognition elements that were positively correlated with the modulated miRNA. Finally, a large proportion of miR-181b associated genes devoid of the corresponding miRNA recognition element, were enriched with binding motifs for the E2F1 transcription factor, which is encoded by a miR-181b target gene.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that miRNA regulate target genes directly through interactions with both conserved and non-conserved target recognition elements, and can lead to both a decrease and increase in transcript abundance. They also multiply their influence through interaction with transcription factor genes exemplified by the observed miR-181b/E2F1 relationship.

MicroRNA-16 is down-regulated in mutated FLT3 expressing murine myeloid FDC-P1 cells and interacts with Pim-1

Activating mutations in the receptor tyrosine kinase FLT3 are one of the most frequent somatic mutations in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Internal tandem duplications of the juxtamembrane region of FLT3 (FLT3/ITD) constitutively activate survival and proliferation pathways, and are associated with a poor prognosis in AML. We suspected that alteration of small non-coding microRNA (miRNA) expression in these leukemia cells is involved in the transformation process and used miRNA microarrays to determine the miRNA signature from total RNA harvested from FLT3/ITD expressing FDC-P1 cells (FD-FLT3/ITD). This revealed that a limited set of miRNAs appeared to be affected by expression of FLT3/ITD compared to the control group consisting of FDC-P1 parental cells transfected with an empty vector (FD-EV). Among differentially expressed miRNAs, we selected miR-16, miR-21 and miR-223 to validate the microarray data by quantitative real-time RT-PCR showing a high degree of correlation. We further analyzed miR-16 expression with FLT3 inhibitors in FLT3/ITD expressing cells. MiR-16 was found to be one of most significantly down-regulated miRNAs in FLT3/ITD expressing cells and was up-regulated upon FLT3 inhibition. The data suggests that miR-16 is acting as a tumour suppressor gene in FLT3/ITD-mediated leukemic transformation. Whilst miR-16 has been reported to target multiple mRNAs, computer models from public bioinformatic resources predicted a potential regulatory mechanism between miR-16 and Pim-1 mRNA. In support of this interaction, miR-16 was shown to suppress Pim-1 reporter gene expression. Further, our data demonstrated that over-expression of miR-16 mimics suppressed Pim-1 expression in FD-FLT3/ITD cells suggesting that increased miR-16 expression contributes to depletion of Pim-1 after FLT3 inhibition and that miR-16 repression may be associated with up-regulated Pim-1 in FLT3/ITD expressing cells.