Variance in the identification of microRNAs deregulated in Alzheimer's disease and possible role of lincRNAs in the pathology: the need of larger datasets

Non-coding RNAs, such as microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs, represent the next major step in understanding the complexity of gene regulation and expression. In the past decade, tremendous efforts have been put mainly into identifying microRNAs that are changed in Alzheimer's disease, with the goal to provide biomarkers of the disease and to better characterize molecular pathways that are deregulated concomitantly to the formation of Tau and amyloid aggregates. This review underlines the importance of correctly defining, in a deluge of high-throughput data, which microRNAs are abnormally expressed in Alzheimer's disease patients. Despite a clear lack of consensus on the topic, miR-132 is emerging as a neuronal microRNA being gradually down-regulated during disease and showing important roles in the maintenance of brain integrity. Insight into the biological importance of other classes of non-coding RNAs also rapidly increased over the last years and therefore we discuss the possible implication of long non-coding RNAs in Alzheimer's disease.