miRNAs expression in synovial tissues of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) individuals

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been implicated as fine-tuning regulators controlling diverse biological processes at the level of posttranscriptional repression. Dysregulation of miRNAs has been described in various disease states, including inflammatory autoimmune diseases. By using high-throughput microRNA profiling analysis, we identified a series of miRNAs dysregulated in local inflammatory lesions of human patients with autoimmune diseases such as RA. We isolated the synovial tissues from four RA patients as well as from two normal people (victims of accidental injury) and two osteoarthristis (OA) patients as controls for comparison. Total RNA was extracted for the TaqMan® Low Density Assay v3.0