title: Non-coding RNAs change their expression profile after Retinoid induced differentiation of the promyelocytic cell line NB4.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The importance of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) as fine regulators of eukaryotic gene expression has emerged by several studies focusing on microRNAs (miRNAs). miRNAs represent a newly discovered family of non coding-RNAs. They are thought to be crucial players of human hematopoiesis and related tumorigenesis and to represent a potential tool to detect the early stages of cancer. More recently, the expression regulation of numerous long ncRNAs has been linked to cell growth, differentiation and cancer although the molecular mechanism of their function is still unknown.NB4 cells are promyelocytic cells that can be induced to differentiation upon retinoic acid (ATRA) treatment and represent a feasible model to study changes of non coding RNAs expression between cancer cells and their terminally differentiated counterpart.
  
  
  RESULTS
  we screened, by microarray analysis, the expression of 243 miRNAs and 492 human genes transcribing for putative long ncRNAs different from miRNAs in NB4 cells before and after ATRA induced differentiation. Our data show that 8 miRNAs, and 58 long ncRNAs were deregulated by ATRA induced NB4 differentiation.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  our data suggest that ATRA-induced differentiation lead to deregulation of a large number of the ncRNAs that can play regulatory roles in both tumorigenesis and differentiation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Medical Biotechnologies, University of Naples Federico II, Via S, Pansini 5, Napoli, Italy. mallardo@dbbm.unina.it.
authors.forename: Annalisa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rossi
authors.forename: Oscar F
authors.initials: OF
authors.lastname: D'Urso
authors.forename: Graziana
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gatto
authors.forename: Palmiro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Poltronieri
authors.forename: Manuela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ferracin
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Remondelli
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Negrini
authors.forename: Maria G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Caporaso
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bonatti
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mallardo