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How can we detect endometriosis using miRNA?

What is miRNA?

miRNA are small units of RNA that play a regular role in gene regulation. miRNA binds and cleaves messenger RNA, inhibiting gene expression. There are hundreds of miRNA, and their profile and activity vary between different cell types.

This makes it is possible to tell the difference between cells from the uterus and liver based on miRNA profiles. Furthermore, cells from the uterus of women with endometriosis have been found to have dysregulated miRNA in comparison to cells from the uterus of women who do not have endometriosis().

More information on found dysregulated miRNAs

Found in all mammalian cells

Unique to cell type

Unique to cell states

How can our circuit sense miRNA?

Our circuit utilizes the natural function of miRNA to produce a differential output depending on whether the cell has dysregulated miRNA. This is achieved by attaching 4 tandem sites complementary to the affected miRNA following a gene of interest.

More information on miRNA sensors here

Are our target sites sensitive to miRNA levels?

These 4 tandem sites for miRNA binding were tested by coding for them distal to the gene for red fluorescent protein. We were able to see a ten fold repression upon increasing the concentration of siRNA from 0 to 1 nM. Saturation appeared at about 10 nM.

More information on testing target site sensitivity

Probing tHESC for miRNA Levels

Unlike more common cell lines like MCF7 and HEK293, tHESC is not a highly characterized cell line. This meant that the levels of our eight miRNA candidates were completely unknown in tHESC. We set out to characterize our miRNA target sites (miRNA-ts) in tHESC using a miRNA sensor.

What is tHESC?

More information on tHESC miRNA profile