Trade.Information

Product Name: MicroRNAs and Therapeutic Products

Product Description

MicroRNA are important regulators of protein production, and as such, they represent potential targets for the development of drugs. Important information about the role of a microRNA in disease can be deduced by mimicking or inhibiting its activity and examining the impact this has on the behavior of the cell or organism. If mimicking or inhibiting a microRNA leads to improvement in disease symptoms, this implies that the target microRNA plays an important role in the disease.

The pharmaceutical industry has traditionally focused on the development of drugs that inhibit specific protein activity because of the difficulties in developing drugs that enhance protein activity or increase protein levels. Even siRNAs, a novel class of drugs, are limited to the inhibition of protein production. In contrast, because microRNAs are natural regulators of protein production, we believe it is possible to develop microRNA-based therapeutic products which can either increase or decrease the levels of proteins. 


A drug that mimics a microRNA should result in decreased levels of the proteins naturally regulated by that microRNA, while a drug that inhibits the microRNA should result in increased levels of those proteins. As an example, our expression analysis indicated one of our microRNAs is a possible oncogene in prostate cancer. We have demonstrated in vitro that when this microRNA is inhibited, the growth rate of prostate cancer cells is greatly decreased.


We believe microRNA-based therapeutic products for infectious disease also represent an area of potential development. Since some viruses also encode microRNA, silencing a viral microRNA may form the basis for a new class of drugs to treat infectious diseases. As an example, we have discovered microRNAs encoded in Epstein-Barr virus, or EBV, and have proven their expression in EBV infected cell lines. We have demonstrated in vitro that the inhibition of these EBV microRNAs inhibits viral replication. Using our proprietary discovery process, we have predicted, and filed patents on, hundreds of microRNA candidates in dozens of different virus types, most of them pathogenic viruses.

Company Details

Rosetta Genomics is an international leader in diagnostic and therapeutic product development and medical research involving micro-ribonucleic acid, commonly known as microRNA. Rosetta has developed an extensive integrated platform in microRNA... more