miRNA profiling during cardiomyocyte-specific differentiation of murine embryonic stem cells based on two different miRNA array platforms

miRNA plays a critical role in a wide variety of biological processes Profiling miRNA expression during the differentiation of embryonic stem cells will help us to understand the regulation pathway of differentiation, therefore to explain disease mechanisms and to find possible therapeutical targets. In this study miRNA expressions were profiled during cardiomyocyte-specific differentiation of murine embryonic stem cells with high-throughput microarray platforms. Two high throughput platforms (Affymetrix and Febit) were involved in miRNA profiling in order to compare the effect of platform on miRNA profiling result as well as to increase the plausibility of target miRNA identification. Four time points (day 0, day 12, day 19, day 26) which correspond to different stages during cardiac-specific differentiation were chosen for the miRNA profiling study.