Interleukin-27 treated human macrophages induce the expression of novel miRNAs which may mediate anti-viral properties (affy)

In this study, we hypothesized that IL-27 could induce the expression of novel miRNAs in macrophages which may have functional relevance in terms of anti-viral activity. In this study, primary monocytes were differentiated into macrophages using M-CSF (M-Mac) or with a combination of M-CSF and IL-27 (I-Mac) for seven days. Following this, total RNA was extracted from these cells and deep sequencing was performed, in parallel with gene expression microarrays. Using the novel miRNA discovery software, miRDeep, seven novel miRNAs were discovered in the macrophages, four of which were expressed higher in I-Mac (miRNAs 2.1, 8.1, 9.1 and 14.2) whilst three were detected in both M-Mac and I-Mac (miRNAs 9.3, 13.6 and 15.8). The expression of six of the seven novel miRNAs was highly correlated with qRT-PCR using specific primer/probes designed for the novel miRNAs. Gene expression microarray further demonstrated that a number of genes were potentially targeted by these differentially expressed novel miRNAs.

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Swaminathan S, Hu X, Zheng X, Kriga Y, Shetty J, Zhao Y, Stephens R, Tran B, Baseler MW, Yang J, Lempicki RA, Huang D, Lane HC, Imamichi T