ABSTRACT
Recent advances in research and medicine have increased the collective interest of the scientific and medical communities in the prophylactic potential of early disease identification, with an emphasis on methods that are reliable and noninvasive. It was recently discovered that extracellular noncoding RNAs can be purified from human plasma in sufficient amounts for accurate identification of specific diseases prior to the appearance of clinically detectable symptoms. MicroRNAs are a class of small noncoding RNAs composed of approximately 22 nucleotides that downregulate gene expression by targeting messenger RNAs, causing their inhibition or degradation, and consequently preventing their translation into proteins. The relatively high stability of microRNAs, as well as their important role as gene expression modifiers, make them a strong candidate for early biomarkers of various diseases that are currently detected relatively late in the disease process. Here we discuss recent findings regarding the potential use of noncoding RNAs for disease identification, focusing on two prevalent pregnancy complications: gestational diabetes mellitus and preeclampsia.
