Expression data from human embryonic stem cell differentiation

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are noncoding RNAs of approximately 22 nucleotides in length that usually suppress the translation of target messenger RNAs (mRNAs) through partial complementarity to the 3¡¦ untranslated region (3¡¦ UTR) of protein-coding mRNAs in animals. However, there is increasing evidence that miRNAs can also reduce the steady-state levels of their target mRNAs in animals. In this investigation, both miRNA and mRNA profiles from the undifferentiated human embryonic stem cell line hES-T3 (T3ES), hES-T3 derived embryoid bodies (T3EB) and hES-T3 differentiated fibroblast-like cells (T3DF) were quantitatively determined. Three common target genes of three highly expressed hES cell-specific miRNAs were identified by inverse expression levels of miRNAs to their target mRNAs. Keywords: cell type comparison Three types of human embryonic stem cells and their derived cells (the undifferentiated human embryonic stem cell line hES-T3 (T3ES), hES-T3 derived embryoid bodies (T3EB) and hES-T3 differentiated fibroblast-like cells (T3DF)) were selected for RNA extraction. The genome-wide mRNA expression of T3ES, T3EB and T3DF cells was determined using Affymetrix human genome U133 plus 2.0 GeneChip. The abundantly expressed genes (10-fold above overall mean) in T3ES, T3EB and T3DF cells are selected to compare with the predicted gene targets of differentially expressed miRNAs in the same set of cells.