Whole genome miRNA expression profiling using HeLa cells in response to Heat shock stress.

Exiqon miRNA array contains LNA-modified oligos which minimizes the Tm-range within which probe hybridizes with the transcript in query, thus minimizing the mis-match. Taking advantage of this, we used the miRCURY LNA array to investigate genome wide signatures for miRNA expression in response to heat shock stress. We also did mRNA expression profiling using the same RNA to look for possible miRNA-mRNA interaction in response to heat shock stress. For the differentially expressed miRNAs, target predictions were done using both miRanda and TargetScan. The consensus set was used for subsequent experimental validation. In total, 6 comparative hybridizations of heat-shock treated versus control were profiled using the Exiqon arrays. These consisted of 3 biological replicates, each with its dye-swap pair.