Abstract

Biomarker Development in Translational Research using Small-RNA Seq

Michael Pfaffl, Professor, Technical University of Munich

Small RNAs, in particular microRNAs, regulate gene expression by post transcriptional binding and thereby suppressing protein translation. They are present in most eukaryotic cells and play an important role in nearly all physiological and regulative processes. Small RNAs were detected in various extracellular locations such as blood plasma and urine. However, very less information is available about the small RNA composition in biofluids such as milk and whether milk possesses its own defined small RNA profile differing from blood. To generate a holistic overview of all present small RNAs in bovine blood and milk and to identify shifts in their profiles, small RNA NGS was performed on whole blood and milk samples during the progressing lactation period. Small RNA-Sequencing was performed using an Illumina HiSeq and subsequent data analysis was done independently using either the GGS and GGA stations from Genomatix Software GmbH (Munich, Germany) or using freely available python scripts and R-packages (Bioconductor).