MicroRNA expression data from Bcl-xL silenced A549 lung adenocarcinoma cells

Bcl-xL is an anti-apoptotic protein that is frequently found to be overexpressed in non-small cell lung cancer leading to an inhibition of apoptosis and poor prognosis. Recently, the role of miRNAs in regulating apoptosis and cell survival during tumorigenesis has become evident, with cancer cells showing perturbed expression of various miRNAs. We utilized miRNA microarrays to determine if miRNA dysregulation in bcl-xL silenced lung adenocarcinoma cells could be involved in regulating apoptotic behavior, and identified dysregulated miRNAs with putative targets involved in signal transduction pathways regulating apoptosis, cell proliferation and cell progression. Short interfering RNA-based transfection of A549 was carried out inducing a reduction in bcl-xL expression levels. 24 hours post-transfection total RNA was isolated using TRIzol reagent and hybridized onto Affymetrix GeneChip miRNA Arrays. A global miRNA expression profile was then established, which compared total RNA, extracted from siRNA-transfected and non-transfected A549 cells. All experiments were carried out with three independent biological replicates.