These results could be confirmed in 2 different validation cohorts. The second study investigated whole blood miRNA arrays in relation to an acute myocardial infarction and found miR-1291 and miR-663b to have the highest sensitivity and specificity for the discrimination of cases and controls. In contrast to our study, the above mentioned human studies were performed on plasma or whole blood GDC-0941 Abmole PIK3CA hotspot mutations differentially impact responses to MET targeting in MET-driven and non-driven preclinical cancer models miRNAs and not on platelet miRNAs. Landry et al. were the first to establish the existence and functionality of miRNA pathway components in platelets of healthy volunteers. Not only did they show that human platelets harbour an abundant and diverse array of miRNAs, further analysis revealed that they also contain the Dicer and Argonaute 2 complexes, which function in the processing of exogenous miRNA precursors and the control of specific reporter transcripts. These findings confirm previous studies reporting the presence of miRNAs in platelet rich plasma, both in healthy donors and patients with polycythemia vera. On the other hand, these observations might have been disturbed by leukocyte contamination. Concerning the leukocyte contamination of our study, we were able to show a platelet purity of 99.72%, therefore contamination seems highly unlikely. When comparing the identified miRNAs of Landry with our list of 30 highest expressed miRNAs of platelets in healthy controls we found that 85% of the miRNAs expressed in their study are in agreement with our study. Moreover, when comparing our 30 highest expressed miRNAs of our platelets in healthy controls with the miRNAs in platelets of healthy subjects found by Hunter et al., who profiled 420 known mature miRNAs by qRT-PCR, we found an overlap of 48%. Considering the technical differences between our study and other studies in profiling methods and RNA isolation methods, this overlap is rather large, supporting the robustness of our data. It could be argued that usage of medication in our patient population might have caused the observed differences in miRNA expression levels. We propose that this is not the case, since our validation cohort I was evaluated before and after medication use, which did not influence the results for miR340* and miR624*. One could speculate which mRNAs are regulated by the two miRNAs identified in this study. We were, however, not able to identify any association between these miRNAs and any disease or tissue involvement. Regarding the identification of a possible biomarker, the results of our study are limited. The relatively small differences in miRNA expression levels between controls and patients make it unlikely that these miRNAs will serve as independent biomarkers. Primary dissociated neuronal cultures remain an important mainstay of neuroscience research. Various media have been optimized for neuronal survival and development in cell culture. Among these, Neurobasal enjoys widespread popularity. Its use has extended well beyond its original optimization for survival of embryonic hippocampal neurons over a few days in cell culture. Despite these extended uses, the effects of Neurobasal on most aspects of cell development remain incompletely characterized. In dissociated hippocampal cultures tested at day in vitro 12�C15, we found that routine media switches with fresh, supplementfree Neurobasal resulted in significant cell death. Similar cell death was not observed with another standard medium, Minimal Essential Medium. We hypothesized that a single component of Neurobasal was responsible for the neuronal loss.