Differential expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) is observed in many diseases including type 2 diabetes (T2D). Insulin secretion from pancreatic beta cells is central for the regulation of blood glucose levels and failure to release enough insulin results in hyperglycemia and T2D. The importance in T2D pathogenesis of single miRNAs in beta cells has been described; however, to get the full picture, high-throughput miRNA sequencing is necessary. Here we describe a method using small RNA sequencing, from sample preparation to expression analysis using bioinformatic tools. In the end, a tutorial on differential expression analysis is presented in R using publicly available data.
Keywords: Beta-cell; Cardiometabolic disease; Diabetes; Expression analyses; Insulin secretion; Islets of Langerhans; MicroRNA; RNA sequencing; Short noncoding RNA.
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.