Identification of microRNA in the developing chick immune organs

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small (approximately 19-24 nt) noncoding RNAs that participate in posttranscriptionally regulating gene expression. MicroRNAs display very dynamic expression patterns with many being expressed in a temporal as well as a spatial manner. Immune genes have been shown to have a higher propensity for miRNA target sites compared to the rest of the genome, thus suggesting that miRNA are key regulators of the immune system. To better understand the involvement of miRNA in the immune system, a comprehensive profile of miRNA expression in the immune organs will be necessary. As a first step toward building such a profile, we pyrosequenced four small RNA libraries derived from the spleen and the bursa of Fabricius of embryonic chicks at days 15 and 20 of development. A total of 90,322 sequence reads were obtained, among which 44,387 reads represented known chicken miRNAs, 3,503 reads were not found in the Gallus gallus database but were homologs of miRBase miRNAs from other species, and 2,023 reads represented potentially novel chicken miRNAs that have not previously been identified. Many miRNAs identified in our work have been shown to be involved in regulating immune genes in other vertebrate species. For example, the miRNAs miR-221 and miR-222, which are known regulators of lymphocyte differentiation, were identified in our studies and appeared to be differentially expressed among the libraries. Overall, our results show that many of the identified miRNAs display dynamic expression patterns, suggesting that these miRNAs play diverse roles in the immune system.