Citation

Kuchenbauer F, Mah SM, Heuser M, McPherson A, Rüschmann J, Rouhi A, Berg T, Bullinger L, Argiropoulos B, Morin RD, Lai D, Starczynowski DT, Karsan A, Eaves CJ, Watahiki A, Wang Y, Aparicio SA, Ganser A, Krauter J, Döhner H, Döhner K, Marra MA, Camargo FD, Palmqvist L, Buske C, Humphries RK. 2011. Comprehensive analysis of mammalian miRNA* species and their role in myeloid cells. Blood. 118(12):3350-8. Pubmed: 21628414 DOI:10.1182/blood-2010-10-312454

Abstract

Processing of pre-miRNA through Dicer1 generates an miRNA duplex that consists of an miRNA and miRNA* strand. Despite the general view that miRNA*s have no functional role, we further investigated miRNA* species in 10 deep-sequencing libraries from mouse and human tissue. Comparisons of miRNA/miRNA* ratios across the miRNA sequence libraries revealed that 50% of the investigated miRNA duplexes exhibited a highly dominant strand. Conversely, 10% of miRNA duplexes showed a comparable expression of both strands, whereas the remaining 40% exhibited variable ratios across the examined libraries, as exemplified by miR-223/miR-223* in murine and human cell lines. Functional analyses revealed a regulatory role for miR-223* in myeloid progenitor cells, which implies an active role for both arms of the miR-223 duplex. This was further underscored by the demonstration that miR-223 and miR-223* targeted the insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor/phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase axis and that high miR-223* levels were associated with increased overall survival in patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Thus, we found a supporting role for miR-223* in differentiating myeloid cells in normal and leukemic cell states. The fact that the miR-223 duplex acts through both arms extends the complexity of miRNA-directed gene regulation of this myeloid key miRNA.

Related Faculty

Photo of Fernando Camargo

The Camargo laboratory focuses on the study of adult stem cell biology, organ size regulation, and cancer.

Search Menu