microRNA mediated regulation of Interleukin-10

Interleukin-10 is an anti-inflammatory cytokine with several critical roles in immune-regulation. Different research groups at IGIB put their skills together to discover novel aspects of regulation of IL-10 expression. The know-how of computationally predicting miRNA-target pairs helped Manoj Hariharan and S. K. Brahmachari identify miRNAs that may regulate IL-10. Further using molecular approaches, Amit Sharma and colleagues in Balaram Ghosh’s laboratory demonstrated that microRNA (hsa-miR-106a) regulates IL-10 expression. The work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). They also studied the involvement of transcription factors, Sp1 and Egr1, in the regulation of hsa-miR-106a expression resulting in decrease in the IL-10 expression. The transcriptional and post-transcriptional aspects of miR-106a regulation are likely to have implications in health and disease.