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Research Paper|Volume 9, Issue 4|pp 1202—1218

Progressive changes in non-coding RNA profile in leucocytes with age

Maider Muñoz-Culla1,3, Haritz Irizar1,4, Ana Gorostidi5,6, Ainhoa Alberro1, Iñaki Osorio-Querejeta1, Javier Ruiz-Martínez5,7, Javier Olascoaga1,3,7, Adolfo López de Munain2,7,8,9, David Otaegui1,3
  • 1Multiple Sclerosis Group, Biodonostia Health Research institute, San Sebastian, Spain
  • 2Neuroscience Area, Biodonostia Health Research institute, San Sebastian, Spain
  • 3REEM, Red Española de Esclerosis Múltiple, Spanish Network on Multiple Sclerosis, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
  • 4Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology, Department of Genetics and Genomics Science, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA
  • 5Parkinson Group, Biodonostia Health Research Institute, San Sebastian, Spain
  • 6Genomic Platform, Biodonostia Health Research Institute, San Sebastian, Spain
  • 7Neurology Department, Universitary Hospital Donostia, San Sebastian, Spain
  • 8University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU), Department of Neuroscience, San Sebastian, Spain
  • 9IBERNED, Center for Biomedical Research in Network on Neurodegenerative Diseases, 28049 Madrid, Spain
Received: September 21, 2016Accepted: April 2, 2017Published: April 27, 2017
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.101220

Copyright: © 2017 Muñoz-Culla et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

It has been observed that immune cell deterioration occurs in the elderly, as well as a chronic low-grade inflammation called inflammaging. These cellular changes must be driven by numerous changes in gene expression and in fact, both protein-coding and non-coding RNA expression alterations have been observed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from elder people. In the present work we have studied the expression of small non-coding RNA (microRNA and small nucleolar RNA -snoRNA-) from healthy individuals from 24 to 79 years old. We have observed that the expression of 69 non-coding RNAs (56 microRNAs and 13 snoRNAs) changes progressively with chronological age. According to our results, the age range from 47 to 54 is critical given that it is the period when the expression trend (increasing or decreasing) of age-related small non-coding RNAs is more pronounced. Furthermore, age-related miRNAs regulate genes that are involved in immune, cell cycle and cancer-related processes, which had already been associated to human aging. Therefore, human aging could be studied as a result of progressive molecular changes, and different age ranges should be analysed to cover the whole aging process.