miRNA profiles of tubular cells

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous small RNAs of 18–23 nucleotides that regulate gene expression. Recently, plasma miRNAs have been investigated as biomarkers for various diseases. In the present study, we assessed whether the miRNA expression profiles of tubular tissues could discriminate proximal tubule injury and diagnose acute kidney injury (AKI) and the renal tubular dysfunction without morphological changes. Human RNA from various tissues (brain, pancreas, kidney, lung, salivary gland, trachea, colon, prostate, liver, heart, skeletal muscle, spleen, proximal tubule and mesangial cell) were used. Expression profiling of 377 human miRNAs was performed using the ABI TaqMan Human MicroRNA Array kit (Card A; Applied Biosystems, CA, USA) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The ABI Prism 7900 HT Sequence Detection System (Applied Biosystems) was used for amplification and detection. Ct values were obtained from the amplification plot using the SDS software (Applied Biosystems).