GSE69663
Comparative Characterization of Cardiac Development Specific microRNAs: Fetal Regulators for Future
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, conserved RNAs known to regulate several biological  processes by influencing gene expression in eukaryotes. The implication of miRNAs as  another player of regulatory layers during heart development and diseases has  recently been explored. The present study was designed to identify the microRNAs  implicated in heart development using next generation sequencing, bioinformatics and  experimental approaches. We sequenced six small RNA libraries prepared from  different developmental stages of the heart using chicken as a model system to  produce millions of short sequence reads. We detected 353 known and 703 novel  miRNAs involved in heart development. Out of total 1056 microRNAs identified, 32.7%  of total dataset of known microRNAs displayed differential expression whereas seven  well studied microRNAs namely let-7, miR-140, miR-181, miR-30, miR-205, miR-103  and miR-22 were found to be conserved throughout the heart development. The 3''UTR  sequences of genes were screened from Gallus gallus genome for potential microRNA  targets. The target mRNAs were appeared to be enriched with genes related to cell  cycle, apoptosis, signalling pathways, extracellular remodelling, metabolic, chromatin  remodelling and transcriptional regulators. The study presents the first comprehensive  overview of microRNA profiling during heart development and prediction of possible  cardiac specific targets and has a big potential in future to develop microRNA based  therapeutics against cardiac pathologies where fetal gene re-expression is witnessed  in adult heart. Overall design: 6 samples (CHL1, CHL2, CHL3, CHL4, CHL5, CHL6)