The role of miR-150 in normal and malignant hematopoiesis.

MicroRNAs are a class of small non-coding RNAs that have been implicated to mediate gene regulation in virtually all important biological processes. Recently there is accumulating evidence showing that miR-150 has essential regulatory roles in both normal and malignant hematopoiesis and holds great potential as a therapeutic target in treating various types of hematopoietic malignancies. The purpose of this review is to summarize our current knowledge about the expression patterns, biological functions and regulatory mechanisms of miR-150 in normal and malignant hematopoiesis, and to highlight the important questions to be answered in this burgeoning field.