Zhou Qing, Gu Tengfei, Zhang Yong, Li Hongda, Zhuansun Xuemei, Xu Sanrong, Kuang Yuting
Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou 215006, China.
Department of General Surgery, Affiliated Hospital of Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212001, China.
Biomed Res Int. 2021 Feb 25;2021:6685605. doi: 10.1155/2021/6685605. eCollection 2021.
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) were shown to have potential therapeutic effects for treatment of liver fibrosis, and dysregulated expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) played a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of liver fibrosis by regulating their downstream target genes. However, the mechanism by which MSCs affect the progression of liver fibrosis by regulating miRNA expression remains unclear. Here, we investigated whether human umbilical cord MSCs (HUC-MSCs) attenuated hepatic fibrosis by regulating miR-455-3p and its target gene. Significantly upregulated miRNA (miR-455-3p) was screened out by GEO datasets analysis and coculture HUC-MSCs with hepatic stellate cell (HSC) LX-2 cells. p21-activated kinase-2 (PAK2) was forecasted to be the target gene of miR-455-3p by bioinformatics analyses and confirmed by luciferase reporter assay. HUC-MSCs were transplanted into mice with carbon tetrachloride- (CCl-) induced liver fibrosis, the result showed that HUC-MSC transplantation significantly ameliorated the severity of CCl-induced liver fibrosis, attenuated collagen deposition, improved liver function by reducing the expression of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) in serum, upregulated miR-455-3p, and suppressed PAK2 expression of liver tissue in mice. Taken together, our study suggests that HUC-MSCs inhibit the activation of HSCs and mouse CCl-induced liver fibrosis by upregulation of miR-455-3p through targeting PAK2.
间充质干细胞(MSCs)已被证明对肝纤维化治疗具有潜在的治疗作用,而微小RNA(miRNAs)表达失调通过调节其下游靶基因在肝纤维化发病机制中起关键作用。然而,MSCs通过调节miRNA表达影响肝纤维化进展的机制仍不清楚。在此,我们研究了人脐带间充质干细胞(HUC-MSCs)是否通过调节miR-455-3p及其靶基因来减轻肝纤维化。通过GEO数据集分析以及将HUC-MSCs与肝星状细胞(HSC)LX-2细胞共培养,筛选出显著上调的miRNA(miR-455-3p)。通过生物信息学分析预测p21激活激酶-2(PAK2)为miR-455-3p的靶基因,并通过荧光素酶报告基因检测进行了验证。将HUC-MSCs移植到四氯化碳(CCl)诱导的肝纤维化小鼠中,结果显示HUC-MSC移植显著改善了CCl诱导的肝纤维化严重程度,减轻了胶原沉积,通过降低血清中丙氨酸转氨酶(ALT)和天冬氨酸转氨酶(AST)的表达改善了肝功能,上调了miR-455-3p,并抑制了小鼠肝组织中PAK2的表达。综上所述,我们的研究表明,HUC-MSCs通过靶向PAK2上调miR-455-3p来抑制HSCs的激活和小鼠CCl诱导的肝纤维化。