Michael Sand gives the reader an overview of current techniques in expression profiling of miRNAs and their maturation machinery in the skin. This book is a postdoctoral thesis on miRNAs in cutaneous malignant melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer with a focus on the miRNA processing machinery and miRNA expression profiling. The research presented in this book was performed in the Dermatologic Surgery Section at the Department of Dermatology, Venereology and Allergology of the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany and gives the reader an overview of current techniques in expression profiling of miRNAs and their maturation machinery in the skin.

Introduction.- Objectives of this work.- Summary and discussion of this work.- Closing remarks.- Paper 1: Expression levels of the microRNA processing enzymes Drosha and Dicer in epithelial skin cancer.- Paper 2: Expression levels of the microRNA maturing microprocessor complex component DGCR8 and the RNA- induced silencing complex (RISC) components argonaute-1, argonaute-2, PACT, TARBP1 and TARBP2 in epithelial skin cancer.- Paper 3: Expression of microRNAs in basal cell carcinoma.- Paper 4: Microarray analysis of microRNA expression in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma.- Paper 5: The miRNA machinery in primary cutaneous malignant melanoma, cutaneous malignant melanoma metastases and benign melanocytic nevi.- Paper 6: Immunohistochemical expression patterns of the microRNA-processing enzyme Dicer in cutaneous malignant melanomas, benign melanocytic nevi and dysplastic melanocytic nevi.- Paper 7: Comparative microarray analysis of microRNA expression profiles in primary cutaneous malignant melanoma, cutaneous malignant melanoma metastases and benign melanocytic nevi.- Paper 8: MicroRNAs and the skin: tiny players in the body's largest organ.- Paper 9: microRNA in non-melanoma skin cancer.