Galley JD, Mar P, Wang Y, et al. - Given the similarity of early-stage symptomology of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in presentation to non-NEC sepsis, improved diagnostics for NEC differentiation seems relevant to allow clinicians to more rapidly set individual patients on a targeted treatment path. Researchers here examined if extracellular vesicle-derived miRNAs are differentially-expressed in NEC infants via performing transcriptomic analysis of urine-derived extracellular vesicle-derived miRNAs. They collected urine non-invasively from infants in one of four groups (n ≥ 8) (Medical NEC, Surgical NEC, non-NEC sepsis, and healthy age-matched controls) and performed isolation of EV-derived miRNAs and transcriptomic analysis. Data gained suggest the existence of a pool of potential urine EV-derived miRNAs that may be validated as NEC biomarkers in the distinction of NEC from non-NEC sepsis and from age-matched controls. In addition, in a murine model of NEC, they noted alteration in signal transduction molecules linked with miRNAs differentially-expressed in human NEC, indicating potential crossover between murine models of the disease and actual human presentation.