MicroRNAs as Biomarkers and Therapeutic Targets in Human Diseases

Dear Colleagues,

Highly conserved endogenous, small non-coding microRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression by modulating translational efficacy of their target mRNAs, thus affecting cellular functions, such as cell growth, division, differentiation, metabolism, neuronal gene expression, muscle differentiation and stem cell division. Distinctive profiles of miRNA expression are often associated with different pathological conditions ranging from neurodegenerative, cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases to cancer. The dysregulation in the miRNA expression may impact the normal functioning of cells, thus leading to development of various human diseases. Unique expression profiles of different miRNAs not only make them ideal biomarkers for diagnostic and prognostic purposes, but also offer the opportunity to explore this information for therapeutic purposes by exploiting them as biological targets or novel therapeutic tools.

In this Special Issue we are interested in all aspects of microRNA sequences that are relevant to (i) their applications in the diagnosis of human diseases, or to (ii) innovative therapeutic strategies, including (but not restricted to) therapeutic knockdown of pathogenic microRNAs, or miRNA mimetics for microRNA replacement therapy.

For this Special Issue, we invite manuscripts addressing one or several of the following aspects:

1. Disease-related specific miRNAs expression patterns for early detection of human diseases
2. Implication of miRNA in drug resistance
3. Use of miRNAs as prognostic markers to predict patient’s response to therapy
4. New strategies for fabrication of innovative diagnostics tools for robust, precise and reliable detection of microRNA expression profiles
5. Therapeutic modulation of microRNAs using selective inhibition of miRNA function
6. Use of microRNA replacement for therapeutics treatment
7. Experimental evidence of substantial transformative potential of microRNA-based therapies

Dr. Elena V. Bichenkova
Guest Editor

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