Chemokines in colitis: microRNA control

Huang et al1 identified and tested the role of a specific microRNA (miRNA) in the pathogenesis of IBD. The study of microRNAs is a burgeoning field within epigenetics. These small non-coding RNAs mediate translation-level repression of protein expression by binding to the 3' -untranslated region of specific messenger RNA transcripts. In the innate and adaptive immune response, miRNAs play an important role in negative regulation of inflammatory conditions in the intestine. Inflammatory regulators such as IL-6, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and toll-like receptors have been shown to induce miRNA expression in both acute and chronic inflammation. The roles for miRNAs in IBD are emerging from recent studies that compare miRNA expression in colonoscopic and peripheral blood draw biopsies from colitis patients with healthy individuals.2 Despite this, the vast majority of miRNAs identified in microarray analyses of colitis patients have yet to be investigated in experimental...

Source: Gut - July 8, 2014 Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Roy, I., Veldkamp, C. T., Volkman, B. F., Dwinell, M. B. Tags: Commentary Source Type: research