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Blood-Based Mirna Biomarkers As Correlates Of Brain-Based Mirna Expression, Mark Kos, Sobha Puppala, Dianne Cruz, Jennifer L. Neary, Ashish Kumar, Emma Dalan, Cun Li, Peter Nathanielsz, Melanie A. Carless

School of Medicine Publications and Presentations

The use of easily accessible peripheral samples, such as blood or saliva, to investigate neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders is well-established in genetic and epigenetic research, but the pathological implications of such biomarkers are not easily discerned. To better understand the relationship between peripheral blood- and brain-based epigenetic activity, we conducted a pilot study on captive baboons (Papio hamadryas) to investigate correlations between miRNA expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and 14 different cortical and subcortical brain regions, represented by two study groups comprised of 4 and 6 animals. Using next-generation sequencing, we identified 362 miRNAs expressed at …