Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Study of microRNA has made great progress in the fields of tumor, heredity, cell proliferation and cell differentiation. However, it is still at the beginning in the research of muscle development and related disease.
OBJECTIVE: To review research advances of microRNAs and its relationship with muscle development and disease.
METHODS: A computer-based online search of CNKI (http://acad.cnki.net/) and SSReader (http://edu.sslibrary.com) was performed with key words of “microRNA, muscle and cardiovascular disease” in Chinese; Pubmed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) and ISI Web of Knowledge (http://apps.isiknowledge.com/) were searched with key words of “microRNA, muscle and cardiovascular disease” in English. In addition, related articles were manually searched. A total of 37 documents regarding position, structure, function of microRNA; microRNA and muscle development; microRNA and muscle-related disease were included in the final analysis.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: microRNAs are a class of highly conserved small noncoding RNAs that can specially bind to 3’-untranslated region of the target mRNA and negatively regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally. Genetic studies have demonstrated that miRNAs are required for both proper muscle development and function, and as regulators of muscle development, as well as in muscle-related disease processes, including cardiac hypertrophy, arrhythmia, and muscular dystrophy. These suggest that microRNA and muscle development and disease are closely related. It has been confirmed that microRNA is highly correlated with muscle development and disease. However, how to regulate microRNA for the prevention and treatment of muscle diseases will be the focus of future study.