LincRNA 1700020I14Rik alleviates cell proliferation and fibrosis in diabetic nephropathy via miR-34a-5p/Sirt1/HIF-1α signaling.

Long intergenic noncoding RNAs (lincRNAs) have been gradually identified to be functional in a variety of different mechanisms associating with development and epigenetic regulation of cellular homeostasis. However, the study of lincRNAs in diabetic nephropathy (DN) is still in its infancy. Here, we have found dysexpressed long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in renal tissues of db/db DN mice compared with db/m mice by RNA sequencing. In this study, 5 lincRNAs were confirmed to express in a consistent trend among these DN-related lncRNAs both in vivo and in vitro. Particularly, 1700020I14Rik was the downregulated one. Moreover, our data showed overexpression or knockdown of 1700020I14Rik could regulate cell proliferation and fibrosis in mouse mesangial cells (MCs). Furthermore, 1700020I14Rik was found to interact with miR-34a-5p via both the directly targeting way by bioinformatic investigation and luciferase assay and the Ago2-dependent manner by RIP assay. Results also displayed that overexpression of 1700020I14Rik inhibited cell proliferation and expressions of renal fibrosis markers through miR-34a-5p/Sirt1/HIF-1α pathway in MCs under high glucose condition, while knockdown of 1700020I14Rik could increase cell proliferation and expressions of renal fibrosis markers. In conclusion, these results provide new insights into the regulation between 1700020I14Rik and miR-34a-5p/Sirt1/HIF-1α signaling pathway during the progression of DN.