Singapore, May 8, 2008: In research demonstrating that RNA previously thought to have no biological relevance may be of use for therapeutic and diagnostic targets, Invitrogen Corporation, a provider of essential life science technologies for research, production and diagnostics, and BioServe, the leading provider of clinically annotated tissue samples and provider of molecular marker research services, announced that their technologies identified noncoding RNAs that were differentially expressed in healthy and diseased tissue. These micro ribonucleic acid (miRNA) sequences were either up or down-regulated between matched samples of RNA isolated from healthy colon and colorectal cancer tissues. 

 

The release noted that the data was presented in a poster at the annual meeting for the American Association for Cancer Research.

 

Invitrogen researchers used RNA samples from BioServe's OncoRNA product line, a series of RNAs isolated from fresh-frozen, fully annotated tumor and adjacent normal tissues, to probe the Ncode Human miRNA microarray V3.  Ncode Profiler software identified miRNAs that were either up- or down-regulated in tumor versus healthy tissue, and researchers used quantitative PCR to validate the findings.

 

"Using the high quality RNA samples from BioServe, we were able to identify novel microRNA sequences that could potentially be involved in the generation of new tumor tissues, particularly in colorectal cancer. If more stringently validated, these disease-related microRNAs may eventually serve as targets for diagnostic or therapeutic development," said Dr Chris Adams, research and development leader of Epigenetics at Invitrogen. 

 

Mr Kevin Krenitsky, chief executive officer, BioServe said, "MicroRNA is making headlines in drug discovery for its ability to fine tune the activity of genes and its part in the formation of cancer. This makes it all the more critical that researchers can be certain they are working with stable, highly annotated samples collected under rigorous ethical and scientific protocols. We created OncoRNA to respond to this need, providing bench-ready RNA for tomorrow’s discoveries."