Boštjančič Emanuela, Glavač Damjan
Emanuela Boštjančič, Damjan Glavač, Department of Molecular Genetics, Institute of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
World J Cardiol. 2014 Sep 26;6(9):939-58. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v6.i9.939.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs), which are small and non-coding RNAs, are genome encoded from viruses to humans. They contribute to various developmental, physiological and pathological processes in living organisms. A huge amount of research results revealed that miRNAs regulate these processes also in the heart. miRNAs may have cell-type-specific or tissue-specific expression patterns or may be expressed ubiquitously. Primary studies of miRNA involvement in hypertrophy, heart failure and myocardial infarction analyzed miRNAs that are enriched in or specific for cardiomyocytes; however, growing evidence suggest that other miRNAs, not cardiac or muscle-specific, play a significant role in cardiovascular disease. Abnormal miRNA regulation has been shown to be involved in cardiac diseases, suggesting that miRNAs might affect cardiac structure and function. In this review, we focus on miRNAs that have been found to contribute to the pathogenesis of myocardial infarction (MI) and the response post-MI and characterized as diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic targets. The majority of these studies were performed using mouse and rat models of MI, with a focus on the identification of basic cellular and molecular pathways involved in MI and in the response post-MI. Much research has also been performed on animal and human plasma samples from MI individuals to identify miRNAs that are possible prognostic and/or diagnostic targets of MI and other MI-related diseases. A large proportion of research is focused on miRNAs as promising therapeutic targets and biomarkers of drug responses and/or stem cell treatment approaches. However, only a few studies have described miRNA expression in human heart tissue following MI.
微小RNA（miRNA）是一类小分子非编码RNA，从病毒到人类的基因组中均有编码。它们参与生物体的各种发育、生理和病理过程。大量研究结果表明，miRNA在心脏中也参与调节这些过程。miRNA可能具有细胞类型特异性或组织特异性的表达模式，也可能广泛表达。对miRNA参与心肌肥大、心力衰竭和心肌梗死的初步研究分析了在心肌细胞中富集或特异表达的miRNA；然而，越来越多的证据表明，其他非心脏或肌肉特异性的miRNA在心血管疾病中也发挥着重要作用。异常的miRNA调节已被证明与心脏疾病有关，这表明miRNA可能影响心脏结构和功能。在本综述中，我们重点关注那些已被发现参与心肌梗死（MI）发病机制及MI后反应，并被表征为诊断、预后和治疗靶点的miRNA。这些研究大多使用MI的小鼠和大鼠模型进行，重点是确定参与MI及MI后反应的基本细胞和分子途径。也对MI个体的动物和人类血浆样本进行了大量研究，以鉴定可能作为MI及其他MI相关疾病的预后和/或诊断靶点的miRNA。很大一部分研究集中在将miRNA作为有前景的治疗靶点以及药物反应和/或干细胞治疗方法的生物标志物。然而，只有少数研究描述了MI后人类心脏组织中的miRNA表达。
