miRNA profiling in Human K562 cells undergoing erythropoietic induction

We investigated the miRNA expression in ex vivo human erythroid cultures from K562 cells. Hypothetically, the decline of certain miRNAs may promote erythropoiesis by unblocking expression of key functional proteins while the up-regulation of other miRNAs may block commitment to non-erythroid lineages. By comparison with the miRNA expression changes in human umbilical cord blood-derived CD34 cells, signature miRNAs for erythroid development can be discovered. Keywords: miRNA expression profiling Human K562 cell line was obtained from ATCC and maintained in IMDM with 10% fetal calf serum (Hyclone). For erythropoietic induction, the cells were adapted to the serum free defined media StemLineII (Sigma) first and then induced to differentiate in the StemLineII media supplemented with 50 ng/ml IL3 and 7.5 U/ml EPO (Mahdi et al. 1998). miRNAs were harvested at regular time points through out this period and hybridized onto the array.