Cardiovascular Disease
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that heart disease costs the US $1 Billion per day in health care services, medications and lost productivity
Understanding the mechanisms that underlie diseases and disorders of the heart and circulatory system is crucial to developing treatments and diagnostic tests for their detection and treatment.
Understanding the mechanisms that underlie diseases of the heart and cardiovascular system is crucial to developing treatments and diagnostic tests for their treatment and detection. Although much progress has been made in recent years, dissecting the gene expression programs which control the early stage cardiovascular development is essential for understanding the molecular mechanisms of human heart development and heart disease1.
Coronary artery disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide .miRNAs have been demonstrated to play an important role in coronary artery disease pathogenesis and expression profiling is a promising tool for discovery of disease-related miRNAs, genes and biological pathways2.
Differential expression profiling of peripheral blood miRNA can be utilized to identify patients exhibiting atherosclerotic coronary artery disease3, which is useful for developing diagnostic tests to determine whether other individuals have a propensity for, or are in the early stages of developing the disease, themselves.
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Myocardial infarction (MI) is a leading cause of death worldwide. MI results in a loss of cardiac tissue, detrimental remodeling events, and a distinct miRNA expression signature in different regions of the heart during post-MI remodeling. Researchers demonstrated that systemic delivery of anti-miRs represses expression in cardiac tissue and reduces infarct size and cardiac remodeling and enhances cardiac function in response to MI1.
Additionally, research has also shown that MI results in the dysregulation of specific miRNAs that are distinct from those involved in hypertrophy and heart failure2.
Since miRNAs exist in circulating blood and are relatively stable, and the levels of specific circulating cell-free miRNAs are significantly increased in patients with AMI, miRNAs could be sensitive diagnostic biomarkers for AMI3.
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miRNAs have been identified as key regulators of complex biological processes linked to several cardiovascular pathologies, including: left ventricular hypertrophy, arrhythmias, hypertension, ischaemic heart disease and heart failure.
Researchers have identified new miRNAs that can modulate physiological cardiac hypertrophy which has led to further understanding the mechanisms behind physiological left ventricular hypertrophy1. Atrial fibrillation (AF) associated miRNAs have been found in the right and left atrium of patients with rheumatic mitral valve disease2 and results suggest that immediate-early miRNA remodeling is involved with the onset of AF3. Additionally, there is evidence that miRNAs are implicated in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Researchers have shown that specific miRNAs can regulate and pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells proliferation, migration, and actomyosin reorganization resulting in vascular remodeling and the development of PAH4. Finally, peripheral blood miRNAs and their profiles can be developed as biomarkers in diagnosis and prognosis of cerebral ischaemic stroke. The dysregulated miRNAs have been detectable even after several months from the onset of stroke in what is usually regarded as neurologically stable patients5.
LC Sciences is helping clinicians and researchers with:
Cardiovascular Research Services
LC Sciences offers a range of services applicable to clinical cardiovascular research. Contact us to find out more.
