STAT4 silencing underlies a novel inhibitory role of microRNA-141-3p in inflammation response of mice with experimental autoimmune myocarditis.

STAT4 silencing underlies a novel inhibitory role of microRNA-141-3p in inflammation response of mice with experimental autoimmune myocarditis. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2019 Jun 21;: Authors: Pan A, Tan Y, Wang Z, Xu G, Xu H Abstract As an inflammatory disease afflicting the heart muscle, autoimmune myocarditis (AM) represents one of the foremost causes of heart failure. Accumulating evidence has implicated microRNAs (miRNAs) in the process of inflammation and autoimmunity. Hence, the current study aimed to investigate the mechanism by which miR-141-3p influences experimental AM (EAM). An EAM mouse model was established using 6-week old male BALB/c mice, after which the expression of miR-141-3p and STAT4 was measured. Gain- and loss-of-function investigations were performed to identify the functional role of miR-141-3p and STAT4 in EAM. Heart weight/body weight ratio, cardiac function, and inflammation degree as well as the levels of inflammation factors (IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-2, IL-6 and IL-17) in the serum were detected. STAT4 was subsequently verified to be upregulated, and miR-141-3p was downregulated in the EAM mice. Furthermore, the overexpression of miR-141-3p or silencing of STAT4 was observed to reduce the heart weight/body weight ratio of EAM mice, improved cardiac function, while alleviating the degree of inflammatory cell infiltration in the myocardial tissue. Meanwhile, the overexpression of miR-141-3p was identifie...
Source: American Journal of Physiology. Heart and Circulatory Physiology - Category: Physiology Authors: Tags: Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol Source Type: research