DISCOVERIES (ISSN 2359-7232), 2014, October-December issue

CITATION: 
Giza DE, Vasilescu C, Calin GA. Key principles of miRNA involvement in human diseases. Discoveries 2014, Oct-Dec; 2(4): e34. DOI: 10.15190/d.2014.26

Submitted: December 22, 2014; Revised: December 29, 2014; Accepted: December 30, 2014; Published: December 31, 2014;

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Key principles of miRNA involvement in human diseases

Dana Elena Giza (1,2), Catalin Vasilescu (3,4) George A. Calin (1,*),

(1) “Department of Experimental Therapeutics, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA; 
(2) Department of Hematology, Fundeni Clinical Hospital, Bucharest, Romania; 
(3) Department of Surgery, Fundeni Clinical Hospital, Bucharest, Romania; 
(4) UMF Carol Davila, Bucharest, Romania;

*Correspondence to: George A. Calin, MD, PhD, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Experimental Therapeutics, Unit 1950, 1515 Holcombe Blvd, Houston, TX, 77030-4009, USA, Email: gcalin@mdanderson.org;

Abstract

Although rapid progress in our understanding of the functions of miRNA has been made by experimentation and computational approach, a considerable effort still has to be done in determining the general principles that govern the miRNA’s mode of action in human diseases. We will further discuss how these principles are being progressively approached by molecular studies, as well as the importance of miRNA in regulating different target genes and functions in specific biological contexts. There is a great demand to understand the principles of context‐specific miRNA target recognition in order to design future experiments and models of normal developmental and disease states.

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