Identification of a microRNA regulator for axon guidance in the olfactory bulb of adult mice. Mus musculus

Using the highly sensitive miRNA array, we screened 40 microRNAs abundant in the olfactory bulb and we explored the functions of these miRNAs in the olfactory bulb by Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes annotation. The enrichment results indicated that these miRNAs mainly participated in the axon guidance process. Furthermore, the quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, immunohistochemistry, and dual luciferase reporter assay results showed that miR-30c is a specific regulator of semaphorin-3A, which will give new insights in disclosing the mechanism of functional maintenance and sexual-specific differentiation of the olfactory bulb. Overall design: In this study, three samples from steady-state mice were used to acquire the miRNA expression profiling and the function of the abudant miRNAs in the olfactory bulb were analyzed by bioinformatic methods.Finally, miR-30c was experimentally validated to be a regulator of semaphorin-3A, an important axon guidance cue in the nervous system.