MicroRNA profiling in the dentate gyrus in epileptic rats

This study aimed to explore the role of aberrant miRNA expression in epilepsy and to identify more potential genes associated with epileptogenesis.The miRNA expression profile of GSE49850, which included 20 samples from the rat epileptic dentate gyrus at 7, 14, 30, and 90 days after electrical stimulation and 20 additional samples from sham time-matched controls, was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. The significantly differentially expressed miRNAs were identified in stimulated samples at each time point compared to time-matched controls, respectively. The target genes of consistently differentially expressed miRNAs were screened from miRDB and microRNA.org databases, followed by Gene Ontology (GO) and pathway enrichment analysis and regulatory network construction. The overlapping target genes for consistently differentially expressed miRNAs were also identified from these 2 databases. Furthermore, the potential binding sites of miRNAs and their target genes were analyzed.Rno-miR-187-3p was consistently downregulated in stimulated groups compared with time-matched controls. The predicted target genes of rno-miR-187-3p were enriched in different GO terms and pathways. In addition, 7 overlapping target genes of rno-miR-187-3p were identified, including NFS1, PAQR4, CAND1, DCLK1, PRKAR2A, AKAP3, and KCNK10. These 7 overlapping target genes were determined to have a different number of matched binding sites with rno-miR-187-3p.Our study suggests that miR-187-3p may play an important role in epilepsy development and progression via regulating numerous target genes, such as NFS1, CAND1, DCLK1, AKAP3, and KCNK10. Determining the underlying mechanism of the role of miR-187-3p in epilepsy may make it a potential therapeutic option.