Progress in studying on the relationship between nervous system diseases and circulating microRNA

MicroRNAs are endogenous 22 nucleotide-long non-coding single stranded RNAs which can modulate the suppression or degradation of target mRNA on post transcription level. Early studies concentrated on intracellular miRNAs while recent studies also identified stable miRNAs in plasma or serum. The discovery of circulating miRNAs provides a new direction for diagnosis, monitoring of the therapeutic effect and evaluation of the prognosis of nervous system diseases. We review progress in studying on the relationship between nervous system diseases and circulating miRNAs in this paper. Key words: Circulating miRNAs; Nervous system disease