Profiling of microRNA expression of mouse cardiac neural crest cells and non neural crest cells

In this study, we investigate the miRNA expression profile of cardiac neural crest cells (NCCs) and non-NCCs. Rosa-mT-mG reporter mice, which possess loxP sites on either side of a membrane-targeted tdTomato (mT) cassette and express strong red fluorescence in all tissues and cell types, were applied in this study. The presence of Wnt1-Cre leads to the deletion of the mT cassette and the expression of the membrane-targeted EGFP (mG) cassette located just downstream in NCCs. E10.5 Rosa-mT-mG/Wnt1-Cre EGFP positive embryos were collected. The 3rd, 4th and 6th pharyngeal arches and outflow tract were dissected out, digested and sorted for both EGFP+ cranial NCCs and EGFP- control cells by FACS sorting. Total RNAs were prepared for microRNA microarray from cardiac NCCs and non-NCCs. Examine the expression of global microRNAs in cardiac NCCs and non-NCCs