生物谷编者按:这是今天出版的《Science》刊登了华人科学家程长真(音译)和李宁(音译)采用miRNA来调节造血干细胞的分化,为传统的干细胞分化开辟了新的方法和思路。传统的方法都是集中于使用细胞因子,或寻找特异性化合物,而在遗传学水平直接调控为干细胞定向分化提供了曙光。但同时我们也应看到,细胞的分化是多基因调控的,单一的基因调节,可能并不能达到理想的效果,因此这篇研究属于开创性研究,但更多的研究还要看后来者。
MicroRNAs Modulate Hematopoietic Lineage Differentiation
Chang-Zheng Chen,1 Ling Li,1 Harvey F. Lodish,1,2* David P. Bartel1,2*
Science, Vol. 303, Issue 5654, 83-86, January 2, 2004
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are an abundant class of 22-nucleotide regulatory RNAs found in plants and animals. Some miRNAs of plants, Caenorhabditis elegans, and Drosophila play important gene-regulatory roles during development by pairing to target mRNAs to specify posttranscriptional repression of these messages. We identify three miRNAs that are specifically expressed in hematopoietic cells and show that their expression is dynamically regulated during early hematopoiesis and lineage commitment. One of these miRNAs, miR-181, was preferentially expressed in the B-lymphoid cells of mouse bone marrow, and its ectopic expression in hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells led to an increased fraction of B-lineage cells in both tissue-culture differentiation assays and adult mice. Our results indicate that microRNAs are components of the molecular circuitry that controls mouse hematopoiesis and suggest that other microRNAs have similar regulatory roles during other facets of vertebrate development.
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