TY  - JOUR
UR  - https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/19930/
ID  - heidok19930
JF  - BMC Biotechnology
AV  - public
SN  - 1472-6750
CY  - London
TI  - RNA degradation compromises the reliability of microRNA expression profiling
Y1  - 2009///
N2  - Background: MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs that post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression and their expression is frequently altered in human diseases, including cancer. To correlate clinically relevant parameters with microRNA expression, total RNA is frequently prepared from samples that were archived for various time periods in frozen tissue banks but, unfortunately, RNA integrity is not always preserved in these frozen tissues. Here, we investigate whether experimentally induced RNA degradation affects microRNA expression profiles.   Results: Tissue samples were maintained on ice for defined time periods prior to total RNA extraction, which resulted in different degrees of RNA degradation. MicroRNA expression was then analyzed by microarray analysis (miCHIP) or microRNA-specific real-time quantitative PCR (miQPCR). Our results demonstrate that the loss of RNA integrity leads to in unpredictability of microRNA expression profiles for both, array-based and miQPCR assays.   Conclusion: MicroRNA expression cannot be reliably profiled in degraded total RNA. For the profiling of microRNAs we recommend use of RNA samples with a RNA integrity number equal to or above seven.
VL  - 9
EP  - 9
SP  - 1
IS  - 102
A1  - Ibberson, David
A1  - Benes, Vladimir
A1  - Muckenthaler, Martina U.
A1  - Castoldi, Mirco
PB  - BioMed Central
ER  -