MicroRNA: a new entrance to the broad paradigm of systems molecular medicine

Abstract

Systems molecular medicine is the science of combining systems biology with molecular analysis and intervention to address clinically relevant questions. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) appear particularly suitable to serve as hubs of regulatory networks underlying complex diseases. Clear experimental evidence for coordinated regulation of a large number of genes by miRNAs, however, is still rare. It leaves open several fundamental questions that are important for determining the value of miRNA in complex regulatory networks and in systems molecular medicine. Physiological genomics is a powerful approach for addressing these open questions.

Fig. 1.

Systems molecular medicine combines systems biology and molecular analysis and intervention to address questions that are clinically relevant.

Fig. 2.

MicroRNA (miRNA) as a hub of regulatory networks underlying complex disease. A single miRNA could simultaneously contribute to the regulation of several components of a pathway, multiple pathways in a regulatory network, or even a cluster of diseases. The hypothetical regulatory network shown here is an abstraction of the one reported in Ref. , which was derived from Bayesian dependency analysis and functional annotation of gene expression profiles in Dahl salt-sensitive rats. 1-1, gene #1 in pathway #1; 1-6-a, a gene that is co-regulated with gene 1-6 but has not been shown to be part of pathway #1.