Circulating microRNAs in Cardiovascular Diseases

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases (CD) are currently one of the most common causes of death of people during the past decade. Due to the enormous scale, heart diseases have already been given the title of the epidemic. Chronic and acute injury of heart can be an effect of cardiac remodeling, which is a result of molecular, cellular and interstitial changes, influenced by hemodynamic load or neurohormonal activation (Cohn et al., 2000).  These small deviations in cardiac function and morphology, may lead to enormous negative effect. Despite great progress, knowledge of classical risk factors for cardiovascular disease, becomes less and less effective, that is why, predicting and seeking for appropriate treatment is very challenging. Therefore, it has been observed growing interest in finding new markers of the CD.

microRNAs (miRNAs), are short, non-coding RNAs responsible for regulation of gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. Among them, the greatest potential have microRNA molecules circulating in the blood plasma or serum, bound to the direct activation of signaling pathways, related to aging process, and thus for the development of cardiovascular disease.