Plant & Animal Genomes XIX Conference

January 15-19, 2011
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

MicroRNA (miRNA) Expression Is Regulated By Butyrate-Induced Epigenetic Modulation Of Gene Expression In Bovine Cells

Cong-jun Li , Robert W Li , Ted H Elsasser

  BFGL, ANRI, ARS, USDA 10300 Baltimore Ave BARC EAST, Beltsville, MD 20705

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of highly conserved, small non-coding RNAs (~22 nucleotides) that regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally. MicroRNAs are encoded by specific genes in the genome, which are transcribed as primary transcripts called primary miRNA. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) bind to complementary sequences in the three prime untranslated regions (3' UTRs) of target messenger RNA transcripts (mRNAs), usually resulting in gene silencing. Histone modification and the miRNA are the two different regulatory pathways of gene expression. We present evidence that butyrate induced histone acetylation regulates miRNA expression. MicroRNA expression microarray profiling revealed that 35 miRNA transcripts are significantly (p <0.05) differentially expressed after cells were treated with 10 mM butyrate. Among them, 11 transcripts are differentially expressed very significantly (p <0.01). The functional and pathways analysis using MetaCore analytical suite shows differentially expressed miRNAs targeting some very important gene networks and differentially expressed miRNAs may interfere with butyrate induced modulation of gene expression and cellular functions. The data indicates the complicated interaction between miRNA and histone acetylation forms a highly integrated regulatory mechanism.