Researchers looking at microRNA in ruddy turnstones found 163 different forms of microRNA, two of which are new and unique to birds. They also found differences in the amount of specific microRNAs in birds infected with bird flu. Credit: Louis Westgeest
Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) are questioning if there is a connection between bird flu and microRNA, the tiny bits of RNA that have different tasks in regulating genes and producing the body’s building blocks.
“MicroRNA is quite stable, and interesting for us who research wildlife. It may tell us something about how animals react to various stress factors in the environment,” said Veerle Jaspers, NTNU professor who is head of this new project.
Just over 30 years ago, most scientists believed that microRNAs were useless fragments that moved around in our cells and bloodstream without doing anything important. But, microRNAs have a far more important role than previously understood.
The recipes from DNA are carried by messengers called messenger RNA or simply mRNA. We have known about these messengers since around 1960. What scientists didn’t know about until around 1990 were microRNAs, which are even smaller. And they didn’t realize that microRNAs were important until a decade later. MicroRNAs can attach to mRNA so that it doesn’t send too many messages to cells to make proteins.
In the current research published in Journal of Avian Biology, Jaspers and team checked microRNA in blood samples from ruddy turnstones (Arenaria interpres) from Australia. Ruddy turnstones fly over long distances, and probably play an important role in the spread of bird flu.
The researchers took blood samples from the birds that correspond to about a tenth of a teaspoon from each. They found 163 different forms of microRNA. Two are new and unique to birds.
The researchers checked which variants of microRNA they could find in both healthy birds and birds that were infected with a less pathogenic variant of bird flu, called low pathogenic avian influenza. And they found something that could be useful- different birds react differently to being infected with bird flu.
“We found differences in the amount of specific microRNAs in the infected birds. It seems to be related to both sex and age,” said Anne-Fleur Brand, a PhD research fellow at NTNU’s Department of Biology.
These findings could help develop a new tool for investigating how bird flu affects wild birds.
Republished courtesy of Norwegian University of Science and Technology