Background: Regardless the regulatory function of microRNAs (miRNA), their differential expression pattern has been used to define miRNA signatures and to disclose disease biomarkers. To address the question of whether patients presenting the different types of diabetes mellitus could be distinguished on the basis of their miRNA and mRNA expression profiling, we obtained peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) RNAs from 7 type 1 (T1D), 7 type 2 (T2D), and 6 gestational diabetes (GDM) patients, which were hybridized to Agilent miRNA and mRNA microarrays. Data quantification and quality control were obtained using the Feature Extraction software, and data distribution was normalized using quantile function implemented in the Aroma light package. Differentially expressed miRNAs/mRNAs were identified using Rank products, comparing T1DxGDM, T2DxGDM and T1DxT2D. Hierarchical clustering was performed using the average linkage criterion with Pearson uncentered distance as metrics. Results: The use of the same microarrays platform permitted the identification of sets of shared or specific miRNAs/mRNA interaction for each type of diabetes. Nine miRNAs (hsa-miR-126, hsa-miR-1307, hsa-miR-142-3p, hsa-miR-142-5p, hsa-miR-144, hsa-miR-199a-5p, hsa-miR-27a, hsa-miR-29b, and hsa-miR-342-3p) were shared among T1D, T2D and GDM, and additional specific miRNAs were identified for T1D (20 miRNAs), T2D (14) and GDM (19) patients. ROC curves allowed the identification of specific and relevant (greater AUC values) miRNAs for each type of diabetes, including: i) hsa-miR-1274a, hsa-miR-1274b and hsa-let-7f for T1D; ii) hsa-miR-222, hsa-miR-30e and hsa-miR-140-3p for T2D, and iii) hsa-miR-181a and hsa-miR-1268 for GDM. Many of these miRNAs targeted mRNAs associated with diabetes pathogenesis. Conclusions: These results indicate that PBMC can be used as reporter cells to characterize the miRNA expression profiling disclosed by the different diabetes mellitus manifestations. Shared miRNAs may characterize diabetes as a metabolic and inflammatory disorder, whereas specific miRNAs may represent biological markers for each type of diabetes, deserving further attention.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a slowly progressive neurodegenerative disease conceptualized as a continuous process, ranging from mild cognitive impairment (MCI), to the mild, moderate, and severe clinical stages of AD dementia. AD is considered a complex multifactorial disease. Currently, the use of cholinesterase inhibitors (ChEI), such as tacrine, donepezil, rivastigmine, and galantamine, has been the main treatment for AD patients. Interestingly, there is evidence that ChEI also promotes neuroprotective effects, bringing some benefits to AD patients. The mechanisms by which the ChEI act have been investigated in AD. ChEI can modulate the PI3K/AKT pathway, which is an important signaling cascade that is capable of causing a significant functional impact on neurons by activating cell survival pathways to promote neuroprotective effects. However, there is still a huge challenge in the field of neuroprotection, but in the context of unravelling the details of the PI3K/AKT pathway, a new scenario has emerged for the development of more efficient drugs that act on multiple protein targets. Thus, the mechanisms by which ChEI can promote neuroprotective effects and prospects for the development of new drug candidates for the treatment of AD are discussed in this review.

The autoimmune regulator (Aire) is a transcription factor that controls the ectopic expression of a large set of peripheral tissue antigen (PTA) genes in medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs). Recent evidence has demonstrated that Aire releases stalled RNA polymerase II (RNA Pol II) from blockage at the promoter region of its target genes. Given that, in addition to messenger RNAs (mRNA), RNA Pol II also transcribes microRNAs (miRNAs), we raised the hypothesis that Aire might play a role as an upstream controller of miRNA transcription. To test this, we initially analyzed the expression profiles of 662 miRNAs in control and Aire-silenced (siRNA) murine mTEC 3.10 cells using microarrays. The bioinformatics programs SAM and Cluster-TreeView were then used to identify the differentially expressed miRNAs and their profiles, respectively. Thirty Aire-dependent miRNAs were identified in the Aire-silenced mTECs, of which 18 were up- and 12 were down-regulated. The down-regulated miR-376 family was the focus of this study because its members (miR-376a, miR-376b and miR-376c) are located in the genome within the Gm2922 open-reading frame (ORF) gene segment on the chromosome 12F1. The T-boxes (TTATTA) and G-boxes (GATTGG), which represent putative RNA Pol II promoter motifs, were located in a portion spanning 10 kb upstream of the ATG codon of Gm2922. Moreover, we found that Gm2922 encodes an mRNA, which was also down-regulated in Aire-silenced mTECs. These results represent the first evidence that Aire can play a role as a controller of transcription of miRNAs located within genomic regions encompassing ORF and/or mRNA genes.