Regulation of Strand-Specific Processing in Human Pre-mIR-371 and Its Mouse Homologs

Author(s)

Jianting Shi, Rowan University

Date Approved

7-2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Biomedical Sciences

Department

Cell Biology

College

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

First Advisor

Hristo Houbaviy, PhD

Committee Member 1

Dmitry Temiakov, PhD

Committee Member 2

Eric Moss, PhD

Subject(s)

MicroRNAs; Cell Differentiation; Humans; Mice; Embryonic Stem Cells; Sequence Homology

Disciplines

Cell Biology | Genetics and Genomics | Laboratory and Basic Science Research | Molecular Genetics

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs, known to regulate genes by inducing target mRNA degradation or translational repression. This regulatory function has been shown to assist developmental timing control and increasingly more evidence reveals some of the miRNAs may have tissue/cell type-specific function, showing the potential to assist cell differentiation. Mouse miR-290-295 cluster is embryonic stem cell (ESCs)-specific miRNA cluster and human miR-371-373 cluster has been verified to be its functional homolog. We have previously demonstrated that human pre-miR-371 is processed into multiple miRNA species, which represent the seeds of the mouse of miR-290-5p, miR-292-5p, miR-292-3p-iso2 and miR-293-3p. Deep sequencing data from undifferentiated human ESCs (hESCs) shows very low amount of miR-371-3p, indicating virtually no expression of miR-371-3p in hESCs. However, transfection of human miR-371-373 cluster into mouse ESCs suggests that miR-371-3p is expressed. In addition, miR-371-3p increases more drastically compared to miR-371-5p upon hESCs differentiation, with the implication of its expression in differentiated cells. The pre-miR-371 and its mouse homologs may exhibit similar regulative mechanism of strand-specific processing upon ES cell differentiation. In order to study this, we established stable ES cell lines with miR-371-5p/3p reporters and miR-292-5p/3p reporters respectively and investigated individual cell line profiles before and after differentiation. Our results implied that potentially different cell types exist in undifferentiated ES cells and these cells may be distinguished by miRNA profiles and/or activities.

Recommended Citation

Shi, Jianting, "Regulation of Strand-Specific Processing in Human Pre-mIR-371 and Its Mouse Homologs" (2014). Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations. 74.
https://rdw.rowan.edu/gsbs_etd/74