MicroRNAs (miRNA) play an essential role in the regulation of gene expression and influence signaling networks responsible for several cellular processes like differentiation of pluripotent stem cells. Despite several studies on the neurogenesis process, no global analysis of microRNA expression during differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) to neuronal stem cells (NSC) has been done. Therefore, we compared the profile of microRNA expression in iPSC lines and in NSC lines derived from them, using microarray-based analysis. Two different protocols for NSC formation were used: Direct and two-step via neural rosette formation. We confirmed the new associations of previously described miRNAs in regulation of NSC differentiation from iPSC. We discovered upregulation of miR-10 family, miR-30 family and miR-9 family and downregulation of miR-302 and miR-515 family expression. Moreover, we showed that miR-10 family play a crucial role in the negative regulation of genes expression belonging to signaling pathways involved in neural differentiation: WNT signaling pathway, focal adhesion, and signaling pathways regulating pluripotency of stem cells.
Keywords: human induced pluripotent stem cells; microRNA; neural differentiation; neural stem cells.