MicroRNA-145 Regulates Human Corneal Epithelial Differentiation [Agilent-016436 array data]

To investigate the microRNA expression in human limbal-peripheral corneal (LPC) epithelia containing corneal epithelial progenitor cells (CEPCs) and early transit amplifying cells, we have employed Human microRNA Microarray V2 (Agilent) as a screening platform to identify specific microRNAs. We discovered a differential expression of 18 microRNAs against central corneal (CC) epithelia, which contains late transit amplifying cells and terminally differentiated cells. Among them, cluster miR-143/145 was expressed strongly in LPC but at low levels in CC epithelia and this was validated by real-time PCR and locked nucleic acid-based in situ hybridization. LPC and CC epithelia, separated by 1-mm in width, were dissected from human cornea for small RNA extraction. Total RNA was extracted by Trizol/chloroform and purified with RNeasy mini spin column. RNA samples with 28S/18S ratios in the range of 1.4 to 1.8 were used for microRNA profiling using an Agilent Human microRNA Microarray V2 platform.