SUMMARY microRNAs are regulators of myriad cellular events, but evidence for a single microRNA that can efficiently differentiate multipotent cells into a specific lineage or regulate direct reprogramming of cells into an alternate cell fate has been elusive. Here, we show that miR-145 and miR-143 are co-transcribed in multipotent cardiac progenitors before becoming localized to smooth muscle cells, including neural crest stem cell–derived vascular smooth muscle cells. miR-145 and miR-143 were direct transcriptional targets of serum response factor, myocardin and Nkx2.5, and were downregulated in injured or atherosclerotic vessels containing proliferating, less differentiated smooth muscle cells. miR-145 was necessary for myocardin-induced reprogramming of adult fibroblasts into smooth muscle cells and sufficient to induce differentiation of multipotent neural crest stem cells into vascular smooth muscle. Furthermore, miR-145 and miR-143 cooperatively targeted a network of transcription factors, including Klf4, myocardin, and Elk-1 to promote differentiation and repress proliferation of smooth muscle cells. These findings demonstrate that miR-145 can direct the smooth muscle fate and that miR-145 and miR-143 function to regulate the quiescent versus proliferative phenotype of smooth muscle cells.

SUMMARYNeural crest cells (NCCs) are a subset of multipotent, migratory stem cells that populate a large number of tissues during development and are important for craniofacial and cardiac morphogenesis. Although microRNAs (miRNAs) have emerged as important regulators of development and disease, little is known about their role in NCC development. Here, we show that loss of miRNA biogenesis by NCC-specific disruption of murine Dicer results in embryos lacking craniofacial cartilaginous structures, cardiac outflow tract septation and thymic and dorsal root ganglia development. Dicer mutant embryos had reduced expression of Dlx2, a transcriptional regulator of pharyngeal arch development, in the first pharyngeal arch (PA1). miR-452 was enriched in NCCs, was sufficient to rescue Dlx2 expression in Dicer mutant pharyngeal arches, and regulated non-cell-autonomous signaling involving Wnt5a, Shh and Fgf8 that converged on Dlx2 regulation in PA1. Correspondingly, knockdown of miR-452 in vivo decreased Dlx2 expression in the mandibular component of PA1, leading to craniofacial defects. These results suggest that posttranscriptional regulation by miRNAs is required for differentiation of NCC-derived tissues and that miR-452 is involved in epithelial-mesenchymal signaling in the pharyngeal arch.