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The miR-1 microRNA precursor is a small micro RNA that regulates its target protein's expression in the cell. microRNAs are transcribed as ~70 nucleotide precursors and subsequently processed by the Dicer enzyme to give products at ~22 nucleotides. In this case the mature sequence comes from the 3' arm of the precursor. The mature products are thought to have regulatory roles through complementarity to mRNA. In humans there are two distinct microRNAs that share an identical mature sequence, and these are called miR-1-1 and miR-1-2.
These micro RNAs have pivotal roles in development and physiology of muscle tissues including the heart. MiR-1 is known to play an important role in heart diseases such as hypertrophy, myocardial infarction, and arrhythmias. Studies have shown that MiR-1 is an important regulator of heart adaption after ischemia or ischaemic stress and it is upregulated in the remote myocardium of patients with myocardial infarction. Also MiR-1 is downregulated in myocardial infarcted tissue compared to healthy heart tissue. Plasma levels of MiR-1 can be used as a sensitive biomarker for myocardial infarction.