miR-223 and other miRNA's evaluation in chronic kidney disease: Innovative biomarkers and therapeutic tools

Construction of a miR-15a-based risk prediction model for vascular calcification detection in patients undergoing hemodialysis

Vascular calcification (VC) is highly prevalent in patients undergoing hemodialysis, and is a significant contributor to the mortality rate. Therefore, biomarkers that can accurately predict the onset of VC are urgently required. Our study aimed to investigate serum miR-15a levels in relation to VC and to develop a predictive model for VC in patients undergoing hemodialysis at the Beijing Friendship Hospital hemodialysis center between 1 January 2019 and 31 December 2020. The patients were categorized into two groups: VC and non-VC. Logistic regression (LR) models were used to examine the risk factors associated with VC. Additionally, we developed an miR-15a-based nomogram based on the results of the multivariate LR analysis. A total of 138 patients under hemodialysis were investigated (age: 58.41 ± 13.22 years; 54 males). VC occurred in 79 (57.2%) patients. Multivariate LR analysis indicated that serum miR-15a, age, and WBC count were independent risk factors for VC. A miR-15a-based nomogram was developed by incorporating the following five predictors: age, dialysis vintage, predialysis nitrogen, WBC count, and miR-15a. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve had an area under the curve of 0.921, diagnostic threshold of 0.396, sensitivity of 0.722, and specificity of 0.932, indicating that this model had good discrimination. This study concluded that serum miR-15a levels, age, and white blood cell (WBC) count are independent risk factors for VC. A nomogram constructed by integrating these risk factors can be used to predict the risk of VC in patients undergoing hemodialysis.

Innovative Treatments to Counteract Endothelial Dysfunction in Chronic Kidney Disease Patients

In chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients, several risk factors contribute to the development of endothelial dysfunction (ED), which can be described as an alteration in the cell structure or in the function of the endothelium. Among the well-known CKD-related risk factors capable of altering the production of endothelium-derived relaxing factors, we include asymmetric dimethylarginine increase, reduced dimethylarginine dimethylamine hydrolase enzyme activity, low-grade chronic systemic inflammation, hyperhomocysteinemia, oxidative stress, insulin resistance, alteration of calcium phosphorus metabolism, and early aging. In this review, we also examined the most important techniques useful for studying ED in humans, which are divided into indirect and direct methods. The direct study of coronary endothelial function is considered the gold standard technique to evaluate if ED is present. In addition to the discussion of the main pharmacological treatments useful to counteract ED in CKD patients (namely sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist), we elucidate innovative non-pharmacological treatments that are successful in accompanying the pharmacological ones. Among them, the most important are the consumption of extra virgin olive oil with high intake of minor polar compounds, adherence to a plant-dominant, low-protein diet (LPD), an adaptive physical activity program and, finally, ketoanalogue administration in combination with the LPD or the very low-protein diet.

Overexpression of miR-204-5p Alleviates Osteogenic Differentiation and Calcification of Human Aortic Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells by Targeting Calcium/Calmodulin-dependent Protein Kinase 1

ABSTRACT

Vascular calcification (VC), a major complication in chronic kidney disease (CKD), is predominantly driven by osteoblastic differentiation. Recent studies have highlighted the crucial role of microRNAs in CKD's pathogenesis. Here, our research focused on the effects of miR-204-5p and its molecular mechanisms within VC. We initially found a notable decrease in miR-204-5p levels in human aortic vascular smooth muscle cells stimulated with inorganic phosphate, using this as a VC model in vitro. Following the overexpression of miR-204-5p, a decrease in VC was observed, as indicated by alizarin red S staining and measurements of calcium content. This decrease was accompanied by lower levels of the osteogenic marker, runt-related transcription factor 2, and higher levels of α-smooth muscle actin, a marker of contractility. Further investigation showed that calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase 1 (CAMK1), which is a predicted target of miR-204-5p, promotes VC. Conversely, overexpressing miR-204-5p reduced VC by suppressing CAMK1 activity. Overexpressing miR-204-5p also effectively mitigated aortic calcification in an in vivo rat model. In summary, our research indicated that targeting the miR-204-5p/CAMK1 pathway could be a viable strategy for mitigating VC in CKD patients.

The Impact of Physical Exercise on microRNAs in Hemodialysis Patients: A Review and a Protocol for an Ancillary Study

Physical inactivity is considered a significant risk factor for mortality and morbidity among chronic hemodialysis (HD) patients. Therefore, physical exercise is recommended in the treatment of HD patients. Although the beneficial effects of physical exercise in HD patients are well-described in the literature, the underlying physiological mechanisms still need to be fully understood. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) have emerged as potential mediators of the therapeutic effects of physical exercise in healthy individuals. miRNAs are short, single-stranded, noncoding RNAs involved in gene expression regulation. Specifically, upon forming the RNA-induced silencing complex, miRNAs selectively bind to specific miRNAs within cells, reducing gene expression. miRNAs can be secreted by cells in an accessible form or enclosed within exosomes or extracellular vesicles. They can be detected in various body fluids, including serum (circulating miRNAs), facilitating the study of their diverse expression. Currently, there is no available data regarding the impact of physical exercise on the expression of miRNAs involved in osteogenic differentiation, a fundamental mechanism in the development of vascular calcification, for HD patients. Therefore, we have designed an observational and longitudinal case-control study to evaluate the expression of miR-9 and miR-30b in HD patients participating in a 3-month interdialytic physical exercise program. This paper aims to present the study protocol and review the expression of circulating miRNAs in HD patients and their modulation through physical exercise.

Complementary feature learning across multiple heterogeneous networks and multimodal attribute learning for predicting disease-related miRNAs

Inferring the latent disease-related miRNAs is helpful for providing a deep insight into observing the disease pathogenesis. We propose a method, CMMDA, to encode and integrate the context relationship among multiple heterogeneous networks, the complementary information across these networks, and the pairwise multimodal attributes. We first established multiple heterogeneous networks according to the diverse disease similarities. The feature representation embedding the context relationship is formulated for each miRNA (disease) node based on transformer. We designed a co-attention fusion mechanism to encode the complementary information among multiple networks. In terms of a pair of miRNA and disease nodes, the pairwise attributes from multiple networks form a multimodal attribute embedding. A module based on depthwise separable convolution is constructed to enhance the encoding of the specific features from each modality. The experimental results and the ablation studies show that CMMDA's superior performance and the effectiveness of its major innovations.

Klotho-derived peptide 1 inhibits cellular senescence in the fibrotic kidney by restoring Klotho expression via posttranscriptional regulation

Background: Klotho deficiency is a common feature of premature aging and chronic kidney disease (CKD). As such, restoring Klotho expression could be a logic strategy for protecting against various nephropathies. In this study, we demonstrate that KP1, a Klotho-derived peptide, inhibits cellular senescence by restoring endogenous Klotho expression. Methods: The effects of KP1 on cellular senescence and Klotho expression were assessed in mouse models of CKD. RNA-sequencing was employed to identify the microRNA involved in regulating Klotho by KP1. Gain- or loss-of-function approaches were used to assess the role of miR-223-3p and IncRNA-TUG1 in regulating Klotho and cellular senescence. Results: KP1 inhibited senescence markers p21, p16 and γ-H2AX in tubular epithelial cells of diseased kidneys, which was associated with its restoration of Klotho expression at the posttranscriptional level. Profiling of kidney microRNAs by RNA sequencing identified miR-223-3p that bound to Klotho mRNA and inhibited its protein expression. Overexpression of miR-223-3p inhibited Klotho and induced p21, p16 and γ-H2AX, which were negated by KP1. Conversely, inhibition of miR-223-3p restored Klotho expression, inhibited cellular senescence. Furthermore, miR-223-3p interacted with lncRNA-TUG1 and inhibited its expression. Knockdown of lncRNA-TUG1 increased miR-223-3p, aggravated Klotho loss and worsened cellular senescence, whereas KP1 mitigated all these changes. Conclusion: These studies demonstrate that KP1 inhibits cellular senescence and induces Klotho expression via posttranscriptional regulation mediated by miR-223-3p and lncRNA-TUG1. By restoring endogenous Klotho, KP1 elicits a broad spectrum of protective actions and could serve as a promising therapeutic agent for fibrotic kidney disorders.

MiRNA regulated therapeutic potential of the stromal vascular fraction: Current clinical applications - A systematic review

Introduction

The stromal vascular fraction (SVF) is a heterogeneous population of cells that, interacting with each other, can affect the processes of regeneration, angiogenesis, and immunomodulation. Over the past 20 years, there has been a trend towards an increase in the number of clinical studies on the therapeutic use of SVF. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are also important regulators of cellular function and they have been shown to be involved in SVF cellular component function. The purpose of this study was to analyze existing clinical studies on the therapeutic use of SVF including the role of miRNAs in the regulation of the function of the cellular component of SVF as an anti-inflammatory, pro-angiogenic and cell differentiation activity.

Methods

The search strategy was to use material from the clinicaltrials.gov website, which focused on the key term "Stromal vascular fraction", and the inclusion and exclusion criteria were divided into two stages.

Results

By August 2022, there were 149 registered clinical trials. Most studies belong to either Phase 1-2 (49.37%), Phase 1 (25.32%) or Phase 2 (22.78%). Most of them focused in the fields of traumatology, neurology/neurosurgery, endocrinology, vascular surgery, and immunology. However, only 8 clinical trials had published results. All of clinical trials have similar preparation methods and 8 clinical trials have positive results with no serious adverse effects.

Conclusions

There appears to be a wide potential for the clinical use of SVF without reports of serious side effects. Many preclinical and clinical studies are currently underway on the use of SVF, and their future results will help to further explore their therapeutic potential. Nevertheless, there are not many studies on the role of miRNAs in the SVF microenvironment; however, this topic is very important for further study of the clinical application of SVF, including safety, in various human diseases.

Predicting miRNA-disease associations based on multi-view information fusion

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in various biological processes and their abnormal expression could lead to the occurrence of diseases. Exploring the potential relationships between miRNAs and diseases can contribute to the diagnosis and treatment of complex diseases. The increasing databases storing miRNA and disease information provide opportunities to develop computational methods for discovering unobserved disease-related miRNAs, but there are still some challenges in how to effectively learn and fuse information from multi-source data. In this study, we propose a multi-view information fusion based method for miRNA-disease association (MDA)prediction, named MVIFMDA. Firstly, multiple heterogeneous networks are constructed by combining the known MDAs and different similarities of miRNAs and diseases based on multi-source information. Secondly, the topology features of miRNAs and diseases are obtained by using the graph convolutional network to each heterogeneous network view, respectively. Moreover, we design the attention strategy at the topology representation level to adaptively fuse representations including different structural information. Meanwhile, we learn the attribute representations of miRNAs and diseases from their similarity attribute views with convolutional neural networks, respectively. Finally, the complicated associations between miRNAs and diseases are reconstructed by applying a bilinear decoder to the combined features, which combine topology and attribute representations. Experimental results on the public dataset demonstrate that our proposed model consistently outperforms baseline methods. The case studies further show the ability of the MVIFMDA model for inferring underlying associations between miRNAs and diseases.

MicroRNAs in kidney injury and disease

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression by degrading or repressing the translation of their target messenger RNAs. As miRNAs are critical regulators of cellular homeostasis, their dysregulation is a crucial component of cell and organ injury. A substantial body of evidence indicates that miRNAs are involved in the pathophysiology of acute kidney injury (AKI), chronic kidney disease and allograft damage. Different subsets of miRNAs are dysregulated during AKI, chronic kidney disease and allograft rejection, which could reflect differences in the physiopathology of these conditions. miRNAs that have been investigated in AKI include miR-21, which has an anti-apoptotic role, and miR-214 and miR-668, which regulate mitochondrial dynamics. Various miRNAs are downregulated in diabetic kidney disease, including the miR-30 family and miR-146a, which protect against inflammation and fibrosis. Other miRNAs such as miR-193 and miR-92a induce podocyte dedifferentiation in glomerulonephritis. In transplantation, miRNAs have been implicated in allograft rejection and injury. Further work is needed to identify and validate miRNAs as biomarkers of graft function and of kidney disease development and progression. Use of combinations of miRNAs together with other molecular markers could potentially improve diagnostic or predictive power and facilitate clinical translation. In addition, targeting specific miRNAs at different stages of disease could be a promising therapeutic strategy.

A comprehensive review of online resources for microRNA-diseases associations: the state of the art

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) as small 19- to 24-nucleotide noncoding RNAs regulate several mRNA targets and signaling pathways. Therefore, miRNAs are considered key regulators in cellular pathways as well as various pathologies. There is substantial interest in the relationship between disease and miRNAs, which made that one of the important research topics. Interestingly, miRNAs emerged as an attractive approach for clinical application, not only as biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis or in the prediction of therapy response but also as therapeutic tools. For these purposes, the identification of crucial miRNAs in disease is very important. Databases provided valuable experimental and computational miRNAs-disease information in an accessible and comprehensive manner, such as miRNA target genes, miRNA related in signaling pathways and miRNA involvement in various diseases. In this review, we summarized miRNAs-disease databases in two main categories based on the general or specific diseases. In these databases, researchers could search diseases to identify critical miRNAs and developed that for clinical applications. In another way, by searching particular miRNAs, they could recognize in which disease these miRNAs would be dysregulated. Despite the significant development that has been done in these databases, there are still some limitations, such as not being updated and not providing uniform and detailed information that should be resolved in future databases. This survey can be helpful as a comprehensive reference for choosing a suitable database by researchers and as a guideline for comparing the features and limitations of the database by developer or designer. Short abstract We summarized miRNAs-disease databases that researchers could search disease to identify critical miRNAs and developed that for clinical applications. This survey can help choose a suitable database for researchers.

miRNA biomarkers in renal disease

Chronic kidney disease (CKD), which is characterized by the gradual loss of kidney function, is a growing worldwide problem due to CKD-related morbidity and mortality. There are no reliable and early biomarkers enabling the monitoring, the stratification of CKD progression and the estimation of the risk of CKD-related complications, and therefore, the search for such molecules is still going on. Numerous studies have provided evidence that miRNAs are potentially important particles in the CKD field. Studies indicate that some miRNA levels can be increased in patients with CKD stages III–V and hemodialysis and decreased in renal transplant recipients (miR-143, miR-145 and miR-223) as well as elevated in patients with CKD stages III–V, decreased in hemodialysis patients and even more markedly decreased in renal transplant recipients (miR-126 and miR-155). miRNA have great potential of being sensitive and specific biomarkers in kidney diseases as they are tissue specific and stable in various biological materials. Some promising non-invasive miRNA biomarkers have already been recognized in renal disease with the potential to enhance diagnostic accuracy, predict prognosis and monitor the course of disease. However, large-scale clinical trials enrolling heterogeneous patients are required to evaluate the clinical value of miRNAs.

Pathogenetic Role and Clinical Implications of Regulatory RNAs in Biliary Tract Cancer

Biliary tract cancer (BTC) is characterised by poor prognosis and low overall survival in patients. This is generally due to minimal understanding of its pathogenesis, late diagnosis and limited therapeutics in preventing or treating BTC patients. Non-coding RNA (ncRNA) are small RNAs (mRNA) that are not translated to proteins. ncRNAs were considered to be of no importance in the genome, but recent studies have shown they play essential roles in biology and oncology such as transcriptional repression and degradation, thus regulating mRNA transcriptomes. This has led to investigations into the role of ncRNAs in the pathogenesis of BTC, and their clinical implications. In this review, the mechanisms of action of ncRNA are discussed and the role of microRNAs in BTC is summarised. The scope of this review will be limited to miRNA as they have been shown to play the most significant roles in BTC progression. There is huge potential in miRNA-based biomarkers and therapeutics in BTC, but more studies, research and technological advancements are required before it can be translated into clinical practice for patients.

Potential role of ACE2-related microRNAs in COVID-19-associated nephropathy

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is responsible for coronavirus disease (COVID-19), potentially have severe kidney adverse effects. This organ expressed angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), the transmembrane protein which facilitate the entering of the virus into the cell. Therefore, early detection of the kidney manifestations of COVID-19 is crucial. Previous studies showed ACE2 role in various indications of this disease, especially in kidney effects. The MicroRNAs (miRNAs) in this organ affected ACE2 expression. Therefore, this review aims at summarizing the literature of a novel miRNA-based therapy and its potential applications in COVID-19-associated nephropathy. Furthermore, previous studies were analyzed for the kidney manifestations of COVID-19 and the miRNAs role that were published on the online databases, namely MEDLINE (PubMed) and Scopus. Several miRNAs, particularly miR-18 (which was upregulated in nephropathy), played a crucial role in ACE2 expression. Therefore, the antimiR-18 roles were summarized in various primate models that aided in developing the therapy for ACE2 related diseases.

Differentially expressed urinary exo-miRs and clinical outcomes in kidney recipients on short-term tacrolimus therapy: a pilot study

Aim: To analyze the expression of urinary exosome-derived miRNAs (exo-miRs) in kidney recipients on tacrolimus-based therapy. Patients & methods: Clinical and drug monitoring data were recorded from 23 kidney recipients. Expression of 93 exo-miRs was measured by quantitative PCR array and mRNA targets were explored. Results: 16 exo-miRs were differentially expressed, including marked upregulation of miR-155-5p, and downregulation of miR-223-3p and miR-1228-3p. Expression of miR-155-5p and miR-223-3p correlated with tacrolimus dose (p < 0.05), miR-223-3p with serum creatinine (p < 0.05), and miR-223-3p and miR-1228-3p with blood leukocytes (p < 0.05). 12 miRNAs have predicted targets involved in cell proliferation, apoptosis, stress response, PIK3/AKT/mTOR and TGF-β signaling pathways. Conclusion: Differentially expressed urinary exo-miRs may be useful markers to monitor tacrolimus therapy and graft function in kidney transplantation.

MicroRNAs in Chronic Kidney Disease: Four Candidates for Clinical Application

There are still major challenges regarding the early diagnosis and treatment of chronic kidney disease (CKD), which is in part due to the fact that its pathophysiology is very complex and not clarified in detail. The diagnosis of CKD commonly is made after kidney damage has occurred. This highlights the need for better mechanistic insight into CKD as well as improved clinical tools for both diagnosis and treatment. In the last decade, many studies have focused on microRNAs (miRs) as novel diagnostic tools or clinical targets. MiRs are small non-coding RNA molecules that are involved in post-transcriptional gene regulation and many have been studied in CKD. A wide array of pre-clinical and clinical studies have highlighted the potential role for miRs in the pathogenesis of hypertensive nephropathy, diabetic nephropathy, glomerulonephritis, kidney tubulointerstitial fibrosis, and some of the associated cardiovascular complications. In this review, we will provide an overview of the miRs studied in CKD, especially highlighting miR-103a-3p, miR-192-5p, the miR-29 family and miR-21-5p as these have the greatest potential to result in novel therapeutic and diagnostic strategies.

LncRNA-SNHG29 inhibits vascular smooth muscle cell calcification by downregulating miR-200b-3p to activate the α-Klotho/FGFR1/FGF23 axis

BACKGROUND

Vascular calcification (VC) is characterized by mineral accumulation on the walls of arteries and veins, which is a pathological process commonly found in elderly individuals and patients with atherosclerosis, hypertension, and diabetes. Emerging evidence suggests that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play an important role in VC. However, the role of SNHG29 is less clear.

METHODS

The expression of SNHG29, miR-200b-3p, α-Klotho, FGFR1 and FGF23 in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) was quantified by qRT-PCR and western blot assays. β-GP was used to construct an in vitro calcification model, followed by MTT assay to detect cell viability. Calcification was determined by alizarin red S staining and quantified by calcification assay. ALP activity was investigated by ALP staining. The interactions among SNHG29, miR-200b-3p and α-Klotho were verified by luciferase assay.

RESULTS

In the in vitro calcification model, SNHG29 was downregulated, while miR-200b-3p was upregulated. SNHG29 overexpression and miR-200b-3p knockdown significantly suppressed osteoblast-related factors (RUNX2 and BMP2), accompanied by activation of the α-Klotho/FGFR1/FGF23 axis, further inhibiting the formation of calcified nodules. Moreover, miR-200b-3p overexpression and α-Klotho knockdown reversed the SNHG29 overexpression-induced inhibitory effects on calcified VSMCs.

CONCLUSION

Our study is the first to demonstrate that SNHG29 could inhibit VSMC calcification by downregulating miR-200b-3p to activate the α-Klotho/FGFR1/FGF23 axis, suggesting SNHG29 as a novel therapeutic target for VC-associated diseases.

Uromodulin and microRNAs in Kidney Transplantation-Association with Kidney Graft Function

Uromodulin and microRNAs (miRNAs) have recently been investigated as potential biomarkers for kidney graft associated pathology and outcome, with a special focus on biomarkers indicating specific disease processes and kidney graft survival. The study's aim was to determine whether expression of serum uromodulin concentration and selected miRNAs might be related to renal function in kidney transplant recipients (KTRs). The uromodulin concentration and expression of six selected miRNAs (miR-29c, miR-126, miR-146a, miR-150, miR-155, and miR-223) were determined in the serum of 100 KTRs with stable graft function and chronic kidney disease of all five stages. Kidney graft function was estimated with routine parameters (creatinine, urea, cystatin C, and Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration study equations) and precisely measured using chromium-51 labelled ethylenediaminetetraacetic-acid clearance. The selected miRNAs were shown to be independent of kidney graft function, indicating their potential as biomarkers of associated kidney graft disease processes. In contrast, the serum uromodulin level depended entirely on kidney graft function and thus reflected functioning tubules rather than any specific kidney graft injury. However, decreased concentrations of serum uromodulin can be observed in the early course of tubulointerstitial injury, thereby suggesting its useful role as an accurate, noninvasive biomarker of early (subclinical) kidney graft injury.

Melatonin Suppresses Renal Cortical Fibrosis by Inhibiting Cytoskeleton Reorganization and Mitochondrial Dysfunction through Regulation of miR-4516

Renal fibrosis, a major risk factor for kidney failure, can lead to chronic kidney disease (CKD) and is caused by cytoskeleton reorganization and mitochondrial dysfunction. In this study, we investigated the potential of melatonin treatment to reduce renal fibrosis by recovering the cytoskeleton reorganization and mitochondrial dysfunction. We found that miR-4516 expression was downregulated in the renal cortex of CKD mice and P-cresol-treated TH1 cells. Decreased miR-4516 expression stimulated cytoskeleton reorganization and mitochondrial dysfunction, and induced renal fibrosis. Melatonin treatment suppressed fibrosis by inhibiting cytoskeleton reorganization and restoring mitochondrial function via increased miR-4516 expression. More specifically, melatonin treatment increased miR-4516 expression while decreasing ITGA9 expression, thereby inhibiting cytoskeleton reorganization. In addition, increased expression of miR-4516 by melatonin treatment reduced ROS formation and restored mitochondrial function. These findings suggest that melatonin may be a promising treatment for patients with CKD having renal fibrosis. Moreover, regulation of miR-4516 expression may be a novel strategy for the treatment of renal fibrosis.

How do Uremic Toxins Affect the Endothelium?

Uremic toxins can induce endothelial dysfunction in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Indeed, the structure of the endothelial monolayer is damaged in CKD, and studies have shown that the uremic toxins contribute to the loss of cell–cell junctions, increasing permeability. Membrane proteins, such as transporters and receptors, can mediate the interaction between uremic toxins and endothelial cells. In these cells, uremic toxins induce oxidative stress and activation of signaling pathways, including the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB), and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways. The activation of these pathways leads to overexpression of proinflammatory (e.g., monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, E-selectin) and prothrombotic (e.g., tissue factor) proteins. Uremic toxins also induce the formation of endothelial microparticles (EMPs), which can lead to the activation and dysfunction of other cells, and modulate the expression of microRNAs that have an important role in the regulation of cellular processes. The resulting endothelial dysfunction contributes to the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases, such as atherosclerosis and thrombotic events. Therefore, uremic toxins as well as the pathways they modulated may be potential targets for therapies in order to improve treatment for patients with CKD.

miR-136 improves renal fibrosis in diabetic rats by targeting down-regulation of tyrosine kinase SYK and inhibition of TGF-β1/Smad3 signaling pathway

Objective: To investigate the way that miR-136 regulated spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) and transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1)/Smad3 signaling pathways on renal fibrosis.Methods: 100 male SD (Sprague-Dawley) rats were randomly divided into diabetic nephropathy (DN) group, normal control (NC) group, miR-136 mimics group, and control group. The renal fibrosis model of diabetic rats was established by streptozotocin (STZ) method. NRK-52E cells were transfected into six groups: HG group, HG + miR-136 group, HG + miR-NC group, miR-136 + SYK group, miR-136 + NC group, and control group. Histopathological examination, the expressions of miR-136 and SYK mRNA, the expression of mTOR, blood glucose, urine protein, body weight, creatinine level, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), and KW/BW were detected in each group. Transfection efficiency, the targeted binding, and regulation between miR-136 and SYK, as well as the expression level of related inflammatory factors, the expression levels of SYK, E-Cad (E-cadherin), Vimentin, Collagen I, α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), and vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) were detected.Results: It was shown that the expression level of miR-136 in DN group significantly decreased. The blood glucose and urine protein concentrations in the DN group and miR-136 mimics group significantly increased and the body weight was decreased, but the blood glucose concentration in the miR-136 mimics group increased with time. The prolongation of the decline significantly decreased, and the growth rate of urinary protein reduced. Creatinine, BUN, and the kidney weight to body weight ratio (KW/BW) in DN group increased significantly. Cell culture results showed that SYK was a target gene of miR-136 and miR-136/SYK-mediated renal fibrosis by activating TGF-β1/Smad3 signal.Conclusion: SYK activates TGF-β1/Smad3 signaling, while miR-136 inhibits TGF-β1/Smad3 signaling mediating tubular epithelial cell fibrosis by down-regulating SYK.

Ultraconserved element uc.333 increases insulin sensitivity by binding to miR-223

Insulin resistance (IR) contributes to diabetes and aging. Ultraconserved elements (UCEs) are a class of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) that are 100% conserved in humans, mice, and rats. We identified the lncRNA uc.333 using an lncRNA microarray and then used quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction to analyze its expression in the livers of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) patients, db/db mice, high-fat diet–fed mice, IL-6-treated mice, and TNF-α-treated mice. The underlying mechanisms of uc.333 in IR were investigated using fluorescence in situ hybridization, Western blot, and miRNA microarray analyses. The results revealed that uc.333 expression was decreased in liver tissues from NAFLD patients and treated mice. Furthermore, overexpression of uc.333 decreased IR, whereas knocking down uc.333 increased IR. We also confirmed that uc.333 binds to miR-223 and that the levels of miR-223 were increased in the livers of patients and treated mice. These findings showed that uc.333 improves IR by binding to miR-223; thus, uc.333 may be a useful target for the treatment and prevention of IR.

Aortic valve calcification in the era of non-coding RNAs: The revolution to come in aortic stenosis management?

Aortic valve stenosis remains the most frequent structural heart disease, especially in the elderly. During the last decade, we noticed an important consideration and a huge number of publications related to the medical and surgical treatment of this disease. However, the molecular aspect of this degenerative issue has also been more widely studied recently. As evidenced in oncologic but also cardiac research fields, the emergence of microRNAs in the molecular screening and follow-up makes them potential biomarkers in the future, for the diagnosis, follow-up and treatment of aortic stenosis. Herein, we present a review on the implication of microRNAs in the aortic valve disease management. After listing and describing the main miRNAs of interest in the field, we provide an outline to develop miRNAs as innovative biomarkers and innovative therapeutic strategies, and describe a groundbreaking pre-clinical study using inhibitors of miR-34a in a pre-clinical model of aortic valve stenosis.

Characterization of MicroRNA and Gene Expression Profiles Following Ricin Intoxication

Ricin, derived from the castor bean plant, is a highly potent toxin, classified as a potential bioterror agent. Current methods for early detection of ricin poisoning are limited in selectivity. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), which are naturally occurring, negative gene expression regulators, are known for their tissue specific pattern of expression and their stability in tissues and blood. While various approaches for ricin detection have been investigated, miRNAs remain underexplored. We evaluated the effect of pulmonary exposure to ricin on miRNA expression profiles in mouse lungs and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Significant changes in lung tissue miRNA expression levels were detected following ricin intoxication, specifically regarding miRNAs known to be involved in innate immunity pathways. Transcriptome analysis of the same lung tissues revealed activation of several immune regulation pathways and immune cell recruitment. Our work contributes to the understanding of the role of miRNAs and gene expression in ricin intoxication.