miRNA expression in human tracheal smooth muscle

We surveyed miRNA expression in intact airway smooth muscle tissue to evaluate candidate miRNA for further studies. We found 60 miRNA expressed at a detectable level in all four donors and another 118 miRNA expressed in three of the four donors. There were 18 miRNAs with expression levels > 2-fold above normalized expression values. These consisted of 12 described human miRNA, including let-7c, miR-16, -23b, -24, -26a, -125b, -143, -145, -200c and -205; 3 mouse miRNAs including miR-99a, -140* and -370; and 3 novel miRNA termed abi-13143, -13232 and -13268. Total RNA was obtained commerically from tracheal smooth muscle of 4 donors ranging in age from 20 years old to 87 years old. The donors included one female, were of varying races and care was taken to ensure that the cause of death was not due to clinical signs of asthma. Each sample was hybridized to miRNA arrays in duplicate, except for the sample from the female donor, which was hybridized to one array only due to lack of material. Normalized intensities were averaged across sample replicates, except for the female patient which was only analyzed on one array to generate this data set.