Research article

Identification of rat lung-specific microRNAs by microRNA microarray: valuable discoveries for the facilitation of lung research

Yang Wang¹ , Tingting Weng¹ , Deming Gou¹ , Zhongming Chen¹ , Narendranath Reddy Chintagari¹ and Lin Liu²

¹  Department of Physiological Sciences, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078, USA

²  Department of Physiological Sciences, Oklahoma State University, 264 McElroy Hall, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA

author email corresponding author email

BMC Genomics 2007, 8:29doi:10.1186/1471-2164-8-29

Published:	24 January 2007

Abstract

Background

An important mechanism for gene regulation utilizes small non-coding RNAs called microRNAs (miRNAs). These small RNAs play important roles in tissue development, cell differentiation and proliferation, lipid and fat metabolism, stem cells, exocytosis, diseases and cancers. To date, relatively little is known about functions of miRNAs in the lung except lung cancer.

Results

In this study, we utilized a rat miRNA microarray containing 216 miRNA probes, printed in-house, to detect the expression of miRNAs in the rat lung compared to the rat heart, brain, liver, kidney and spleen. Statistical analysis using Significant Analysis of Microarray (SAM) and Tukey Honestly Significant Difference (HSD) revealed 2 miRNAs (miR-195 and miR-200c) expressed specifically in the lung and 9 miRNAs co-expressed in the lung and another organ. 12 selected miRNAs were verified by Northern blot analysis.

Conclusion

The identified lung-specific miRNAs from this work will facilitate functional studies of miRNAs during normal physiological and pathophysiological processes of the lung.