Role of microRNA-200 in metabolic disease

The project investigated the role of microRNA-200 family in metabolic regulation. The microRNA-200 family consists of five individual micoRNAs that are organized in two clusters miR-141/200c and miR-200a/200b/429 located on two different chromosome. They are highly homolgous within their seed sequence suggesting functional redundancy with respect to target gene regulation. Mir-200s are expressed in various endocrine organs including pancreas, thyroid and intestine. To investigate the biological role of miR-200 in metabolic regulation, we generated mice deficient for the individual miR-200 clusters. Cre mediated recombination is used to achieve tissue-specific deletion of miR-200 family. To understand the molecular basis of miR-200 dependent effects in vivo we identified target genes by RNA-Seq.