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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2009 Jul 15.
Published in final edited form as: Semin Reprod Med. 2008 Oct 24;26(6):500–514. doi: 10.1055/s-0028-1096130

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Schematic presentation of proposed influence of miRNA expression and regulatory functions on myometrial and leiomyoma gene expression. The products of these genes are involved in regulating various cellular activities, including inflammatory response, apoptosis, angiogenesis, cell growth, differentiation, and tissue turnover, processes that result in leiomyoma growth and fibrotic characteristic. Additionally, aberrant expression of some of these miRNAs and altered expression of oncogenes/tumor suppressor genes may also result in myometrial cellular transformation into leiomyomas and later into leiomyosarcoma, although the latter rarely occur. However, it is yet to be determined if altered expression of miRNAs results in unregulated processes that lead to leiomyoma establishment and growth or if activities such as inflammation, or myometrial cellular transformation into leiomyomas results in altered expression of miRNAs and thus the expression of their target genes.