MicroRNAs in Genetic Etiology of Human Diseases

Since their first discovery more than 20 years ago, miRNAs have been subject to deliberate research and analysis for revealing their physiological or pathological involvement. Regulatory roles of miRNAs in signal transduction, gene expression, and cellular processes in development, differentiation, proliferation, apoptosis, and homeostasis also imply their critical role in disease pathogenesis. Their roles in cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and other systemic diseases have been studied broadly. In these regulatory pathways, their mutations and target sequence variations play critical roles to determine their functional repertoire. In this chapter, we summarize studies that investigated the role of mutations, polymorphisms, and other variations of miRNAs in respect to pathological processes.