Editorial Circulating MicroRNAs in Cardiovascular Disease

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short, single-stranded, non-coding, highly conserved posttranscriptional regulators found in a variety of tissues including circulating blood.1 MicroRNAs regulate gene expression posttranscriptionally through inhibiting translation from and/or inducing degrada-tion of specific RNAs.2 Certain miRNAs are expressed and function cell-type specifically or in association with particu-lar physiological processes. MicroRNAs contribute to cardiac development and remodeling, and miRNAs found in cardiac tissue show dynamic changes in the setting of heart disease, suggesting their involvement in the regulation of cardiovas-cular disease (CVD). Mouse and human studies have empha-sized the importance of individual miRNAs in different forms of CVD, including myocardial infarction (mirR-1, miR-133a, miR-208a, and miR-499), atrial and ventricular arrhythmias (miR-1, miR-133, and miR-328), fibrosis (miR-21 and miR