MicroRNA-19a regulates lipopolysaccharide-induced endothelial cell apoptosis through modulation of apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1 expression

• DOI: 10.1186/s12867-015-0034-8
• Publication Date: 2015-05-15T10:56:19Z
• Authors: Wei-Long Jiang; Yu-Feng Zhang; Qing-Qing Xia; Jian Zhu; Xin Yu; Tao Fan; Feng Wang
• Keywords: Lipopolysaccharides; 0301 basic medicine; Binding Sites; MAP Kinase Signaling System; Endothelial Cells; Apoptosis; MAP Kinase Kinase Kinase 5; Cell Line; MicroRNAs; 03 medical and health sciences; Gene Expression Regulation; Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells; Humans; RNA, Messenger; Molecular Biology; Research Article

MicroRNAs, small non-encoding RNAs that post-transcriptionally modulate expression of their target genes, have been implicated as critical regulatory molecules in endothelial cells.In the present study, we found that overexpression of miR-19a protects endothelial cells from lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced apoptosis through the apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1 (ASK1)/p38 pathway. Quantitative real-time PCR demonstrated that the expression of miR-19a in endothelial cell was markedly down-regulated by LPS stimulation. Furthermore, LPS-induced apoptosis was significantly inhibited by over-expression of miR-19a. Finally, both a luciferase reporter assay and western blot analysis showed that ASK1 is a direct target of miR-19a.MiR-19a regulates ASK1 expression by targeting specific binding sites in the 3' untranslated region of ASK1 mRNA. Overexpression of miR-19a is an effective method to protect against LPS-induced apoptosis of endothelial cells.