A collaborative study by Dr. Jun-An Chen’s group at the Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, and Dr. Yuh-Jyh Jong’s group at Kaohsiung Medical University has uncovered that a family of small regulatory RNAs, namely microRNA-34 or MiR34, is associated with disease progression of Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and could potentially be applied as a clinical biomarker to assess the efficacy of medical treatments. This discovery provides new insights into how small RNAs participate in SMA pathology and represents a novel way to assist a new SMA treatment protocol. The study has been published in Molecular Therapy – Nucleic Acids.

This study was funded by Academia Sinica, KMU and KMU Hospital, National Health Research Institutes, and the National Science and Technology Council in Taiwan.

Link to the full article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omtn.2023.03.005
More information: https://www.imb.sinica.edu.tw/en/research/publication_show.php?pid=230