miR-486-5p Attenuates Steroid-Induced Adipogenesis and Osteonecrosis of the Femoral Head Via TBX2/P21 Axis

MiR-486-5p predicts the progression of severe acute pancreatitis by mediating the inflammatory response and ATG7/p38 MAPK pathway

BACKGROUND

Acute pancreatitis (AP) is a serious disorder, and is frequently accompanied by shock or organ failure. The study aimed to investigate the predictive value of serum miR-486-5p for the prognosis of SAP patients and the underlying mechanism.

METHODS

The concentration of mRNAs was detected by Real-Time PCR reaction. The correlation between miRNA and each scoring system was analyzed via Pearson's correlation analysis. ROC curve was performed for diagnostic value evaluation. The predictive value of miRNA expression in the severity of AP was estimated by logistic regression analysis. HPDE6-C7 cells were treated with cerulein (Cer) to mimic AP in vitro. The cell apoptosis, viability, and inflammatory response were detected by flow cytometry, CCK-8, and ELISA, respectively. The targeting relationship was verified by DLR assay and RIP assay.

RESULTS

The expression of miR-486-5p was elevated in the serum of non-SAP and SAP groups (P < 0.001), which was interconnected with APACHE II, SOFA, and Ranson scores. MiR-486-5p can differentiate SAP patients from non-SAP with the AUC of 0.916, and it was an independent risk for the severity of AP patients. The miR-486-5p/ATG7 axis affected the apoptosis, viability, and inflammatory response of HPDE6-C7 cell models by the p38 MAPK pathway, thus involving the progression of AP.

CONCLUSIONS

Serum miR-486-5p may have a certain predictive value for the severity of AP and influence AP development through mediating cell inflammatory response via targeting ATG7.

Role of miRNA-mRNA Interactome in Pathophysiology of Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy

Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy is an inherited entity characterized by irregular cell-cell adhesion, cardiomyocyte death and fibro-fatty replacement of ventricular myocytes, leading to malignant ventricular arrythmias, contractile dysfunction and sudden cardiac death. Pathogenic variants in genes that encode desmosome are the predominant cause of arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy. Moreover, signalling pathways such as Wnt/ß-catenin and transforming growth factor-β have been involved in the disease progression. However, still little is known about the molecular pathophysiological mechanisms that underlie arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy pathogenesis. We used mRNA and small RNA sequencing to analyse the transcriptome of health and arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy of autopsied human hearts. Our results showed 697 differentially expressed genes and eight differentially expressed miRNAs. Functional enrichment revealed mitochondrial respiratory-related pathways, impaired response to oxidative stress, apoptotic signalling pathways and inflammatory response-related and extracellular matrix response pathways. Furthermore, analysis of the miRNA-mRNA interactome identified eleven negatively correlated miRNA-target pairs for arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy. Our finding revealed novel arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy-related miRNAs with important regulatory function in disease pathogenesis, highlighting their value as potential key targets for therapeutic approaches.

Insight into Steroid-Induced ONFH: The Molecular Mechanism and Function of Epigenetic Modification in Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) is a common refractory orthopedic disease, which is one of the common causes of hip pain and dysfunction. ONFH has a very high disability rate, which is associated with a heavy burden to patients, families, and society. The pathogenesis of ONFH is not completely clear. At present, it is believed that it mainly includes coagulation dysfunction, abnormal lipid metabolism, an imbalance of osteogenic/adipogenic differentiation, and poor vascularization repair. The prevention and treatment of ONFH has always been a great challenge for clinical orthopedic surgeons. However, recent studies have emphasized that the use of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to treat steroid-induced ONFH (SONFH) is a promising therapy. This review focuses on the role and molecular mechanism of epigenetic regulation in the progress of MSCs in the treatment of SONFH, and discusses the significance of the latest research in the treatment of SONFH from the perspective of epigenetics.