MicroRNAs show mutually exclusive expression patterns in the brain of adult male rats.
BACKGROUND
The brain is a major site of microRNA (miRNA) gene expression, but the spatial expression patterns of miRNAs within the brain have not yet been fully covered.


RESULTS
We have characterized the regional expression profiles of miRNAs in five distinct regions of the adult rat brain: amygdala, cerebellum, hippocampus, hypothalamus and substantia nigra. Microarray profiling uncovered 48 miRNAs displaying more than three-fold enrichment between two or more brain regions. Notably, we found reciprocal expression profiles for a subset of the miRNAs predominantly found (> ten times) in either the cerebellum (miR-206 and miR-497) or the forebrain regions (miR-132, miR-212, miR-221 and miR-222).


CONCLUSIONS
The results indicate that some miRNAs could be important for area-specific functions in the brain. Our data, combined with previous studies in mice, provides additional guidance for future investigations of miRNA functions in the brain.
Olsen
Line
L
Institute for Biological Psychiatry, Psychiatric Centre Sct. Hans, Roskilde, Denmark.
Klausen
Mikkel
M
Helboe
Lone
L
Nielsen
Finn Cilius
FC
Werge
Thomas
T
D000818:Animals; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000378:metabolism*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000378:metabolism*; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D016548:Prosencephalon / Q000378:metabolism*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA
D035683:MicroRNAs