During my post-doctoral work in the laboratory of Dr. Jim Goodrich in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Colorado, I studied the transcriptional repression of Pol II by non-coding RNAs expressed from retrotranposed genomic elements. Although previous work in the Goodrich lab had shown that similar elements in mice repress mRNA synthesis, my work clearly demonstrated that the binding and repressing elements within the human counterparts, Alu RNAs, were separate. Of significant importance, and the reason that this work was published in Molecular Cell, stemmed from the fact that these elements could be rationally interchanged between RNAs in a manner similar to that of protein engineering. Distinct functional domains within the Alu RNA could be combined to create novel functional RNAs. In this way, these non-coding RNAs act like transcription factors. By the end of 2015, less than eight years since its publication, this article has been cited 217 times in the scientific literature.
Breakfast Briefing: From Discovery to Diagnostic: Building miRNA-based Tools for Pediatric Heart Failure Patients
Tuesday, 21 March 2017 at 07:00
Add to Calendar ▼2017-03-21 19:00:002017-03-21 20:00:00Europe/LondonFrom Discovery to Diagnostic: Building miRNA-based Tools for Pediatric Heart Failure PatientsSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com
Circulating miRNAs are important biomarkers of disease, and several methodologies are available that identify circulating miRNAs with varied specificity and reproducibility. We have previously shown that circulating miRNAs can accurately predict recovery from heart failure in pediatric dilated cardiomyopathy patients, and to determine cardiac allograft vasculopathy. Our previous work was performed using serum-extracted RNA and Life Technologies miRNA array cards. Here we describe an improvement to the original methodology that consists of performing miRNA arrays directly from serum, without the need of RNA extraction. Importantly, although 250 µl of serum were necessary to perform RNA extraction, only 3 µl are necessary to perform serum-miRNA-arrays. Furthermore, a thorough description of the methodology used to improve release of miRNAs from microparticles is provided. Moreover, whereas circulating miRNA studies are often based on relative comparison values, an absolute quantification of circulating miRNAs is necessary of tests will be standardize across laboratories. We have successfully generated an absolute quantification platform that can be easily implemented in RT-PCR confirmatory studies. In summary, the work described here provides specific guidelines to detect and quantify circulating miRNAs.
Add to Calendar ▼2017-03-20 00:00:002017-03-21 00:00:00Europe/LondonCirculating Biomarkers: Cell-Free Nucleic Acids, Proteins and Rare Circulating CellsSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com
Add to Calendar ▼2017-03-21 19:00:002017-03-21 20:00:00Europe/LondonFrom Discovery to Diagnostic: Building miRNA-based Tools for Pediatric Heart Failure PatientsSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com
