microRNA-449a levels increase by several orders of magnitude during mucociliary differentiation of airway epithelia

MicroRNAs of the miR-34/449 family mediate cell cycle arrest and tumor suppression. Here we show that the expression of microRNA miR-449a, unlike its paralog miR-34a, is highly tissue specific and largely restricted to pulmonary and testicular tissue. MiR-449a levels in the murine lung are particularly high shortly before and after birth, coinciding with terminal differentiation of lung epithelia. Strikingly, miR-449a is upregulated by more than 1,000-fold when epithelial cells from human airways are lifted from a liquid environment to air, allowing them to undergo mucociliary differentiation. The induction of miR-449a occurs in parallel to its host gene CDC20B and the transcription factor FoxJ1. Exposure to tobacco smoke induces a moderate further increase in the levels of miR-449a, and also miR-34a, in differentiated airway epithelia. We propose that miR-449a can serve as an exquisitely sensitive and specific biomarker for the differentiation of bronchial epithelia. Moreover, miR-449a may actively promote mucociliary differentiation through its ability to block cell cycle progression, and it may conribute to a first line of defence against genotoxic stress by its proapoptotic functions.