Evaluation of the effect of antimiR-122 administration on the liver, spleen and heart miRNome. Mus musculus

To determine the effect of antimiR-122 administration on the mouse miRNome. Overall design: To functionally investigate a possible link between miR-122 and iron metabolism we inhibited miR-122 by a single, intraperitoneal injection of Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA)-modified antimiR oligonucleotides into age- and sex-matched C57Bl/6 WT mice. To inhibit miR-122 specifically, we injected an antimiR compound with perfect complementarity to miR-122 [perfect match (PM); PM_antimiR-122]. As negative controls, mice were either injected with an LNA control compound with two mismatches (2MM, 2MM_antimiR-122) or the vehicle control (SAL; 0.9% NaCl). Mice were sacrificed three and six weeks after injection. Independent of treatment, mice were viable and exhibited no overt physical or behavioral abnormalities. To exclude that PM_antimiR-122 administration disturbs the expression of other miRNAs we analyzed miRNA expression profiles in the livers, hearts and spleens of the same mice.