Miao Xingyu, Wu Xiaoying, Shi Wei
Department of Neurosurgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Xi'an Jiaotong UniversityXi'an, China.
Department of Neurosurgery, Shaanxi Provincial People's HospitalXi'an, China.
Am J Transl Res. 2017 Dec 15;9(12):5400-5410. eCollection 2017.
MicroRNAs have been shown to play an important role in stem cell fate determination and self-renewal. However, the role of miRNAs in neural stem cells (NSCs) remains poorly understood. In this study, we showed that miR-346, a less characterized microRNA, promoted NSCs proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis by targeting KLF4, a core transcriptional factor in stem cell fate determination. Our data suggested that miR-346 could directly target the 3'-untranslated region of KLF4. Overexpression of miR-346 decreased KLF4 expression at both mRNA and protein levels in NSCs. More importantly, Overexpression of miR-346 repressed NSC proliferation and induced the expression of lineage markers including GFAP and Tuj1. Additionally, overexpression of miR-346 promoted apoptosis of NSCs. In concert, suppressing its expression by an antisense RNA, anti-miR-346, promoted NSC proliferation, and meanwhile inhibited its differentiation and apoptosis. We also showed that the effects of miR-346 overexpression could be reversed by re-expression of KLF4. Taken together, Those data suggest that miR-346 is a novel miRNA that regulates NSC proliferation and differentiation by targeting KLF4.
微小RNA已被证明在干细胞命运决定和自我更新中发挥重要作用。然而,微小RNA在神经干细胞(NSC)中的作用仍知之甚少。在本研究中,我们发现miR-346,一种特征较少的微小RNA,通过靶向KLF4(干细胞命运决定中的核心转录因子)促进神经干细胞的增殖、分化和凋亡。我们的数据表明,miR-346可以直接靶向KLF4的3'非翻译区。miR-346的过表达在mRNA和蛋白质水平上均降低了神经干细胞中KLF4的表达。更重要的是,miR-346的过表达抑制了神经干细胞的增殖,并诱导了包括GFAP和Tuj1在内的谱系标志物的表达。此外,miR-346的过表达促进了神经干细胞的凋亡。同时,通过反义RNA(抗miR-346)抑制其表达可促进神经干细胞的增殖,同时抑制其分化和凋亡。我们还表明,KLF4的重新表达可以逆转miR-346过表达的影响。综上所述,这些数据表明miR-346是一种通过靶向KLF4调节神经干细胞增殖和分化的新型微小RNA。