MicroRNA Therapeutics for Cardiac Disease

Copyright: © 2013 Tang Y, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Cardiac disease is a major health concern among the elderly and obese populations. Being the number one cause of death in America, it is rapidly becoming a popular topic for researchers nowadays. MicroRNAs (miRs) are small, non-coding RNA molecules that range from 19 to 25 nucleotides in length and regulate gene expression mainly via binding to mRNAs and causing the repression of their expression [1,2]. They serve as intracellular mediators that are necessary for the heart to function properly. It has been shown that the causes of some cardiovascular diseases can be linked to aberrant expression of MiRs [3]. Therefore, these tiny molecules are of immense importance and have become a target for drug therapy in heart disease.