miRNA Regulation of Neural Development in the Mammalian Olfactory System

Recent evidence has pointed toward a role for specific miR-mRNA interactions in the regulation of stem cell self-renewal and differentiation.  To fully understand the mechanisms regulating these processes it is imperative to elucidate both the nature and extent of these interactions at the genome-wide level. The vertebrate main olfactory epithelium (MOE) provides a paradigm for characterizing the miRNA-mRNA interactions regulating neural stem cell quiescence, self-renewal and differentiation in an in vivo model system. Gene chip and custom miRNA array analysis was performed comparing whole genome transcriptional changes in the MOE stem cell population, the Horizontal Basal Cell (HBC) during quiescence and induced regeneration. miRNA-mRNA interactions were computationally aligned using the miRNA prediction tool TargetScan Mouse 5.1. The resultant genomic data suggest two roles for the miRNAs enriched in HBCs: as boundary enhancers of genes associated with differentiation and as regulators of cell cycle/cancer pathways- in particular the pRb/E2F-Cyclin D cell cycle pathway.