AIMS Growing evidences indicate that microRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in cardiac hypertrophy development. Multiple miRNAs have been identified as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of cardiac hypertrophy, as well as potential therapeutic tools. The present study aimed to investigate the functions and regulatory mechanisms of miR-21-3p in cardiac hypertrophy. METHODS AND RESULTS Decreased exp...

UNLABELLED Congenital human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection is a leading cause of birth defects, primarily manifesting as neurological disorders. HCMV infection alters expression of cellular microRNAs (miRs) and induces cell cycle arrest, which in turn modifies the cellular environment to favor virus replication. Previous observations found that HCMV infection reduces miR-21 expression in neur...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate apoptosis, yet their role in regulated necrosis remains unknown. miR-21 is overexpressed in nearly all human cancer types and its role as an oncogene is suggested to largely depend on its anti-apoptotic action. Here we show that miR-21 is overexpressed in a murine model of acute pancreatitis, a pathologic condition involving RIP3-dependent regulated necrosis (necropt...

A number of microRNAs (miRs) have been shown to participate in the regulation of vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) proliferation, a key step in the formation of atherosclerotic plaque, by targeting certain genes. The aim of the present study was to investigate the roles of miR‑146a and miR‑21 in VSMC growth and to study the underlying mechanisms. The expression levels of four previously report...

miR-21 is one of the most highly expressed members of the small non-coding microRNA family in many mammalian cell types. Its expression is further enhanced in many diseased states including solid tumors, cardiac injury, and inflamed tissue. While the induction of miR-21 by inflammatory stimuli cells has been well documented in both hematopoietic cells of the immune system (particularly monocyte...

CRISPR/Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) mediated genome editing is a powerful approach for loss of function studies. Here we report that lentiviral CRISPR/Cas9 vectors are highly efficient in introducing mutations in the precursor miRNA sequence, thus leading to the loss of miRNA expression and function. We constructed four different lentiviral CRISPR/Cas9 vector...

This study aimed to explore the effects of miR-21 and PTEN/Akt signaling pathway on TGF-β1-induced epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in gastric cancer (GC). GC tissues and adjacent tissues were collected from 83 patients. The qRT-PCR assay was performed to detect miR-21 expression. The expressions of PTEN, Akt and p-Akt were detected by immunohistochemistry. After 48 h of treatment with T...

Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (Stat3) is implicated in the pathogenesis of many malignancies and essential for IL-6-dependent survival and growth of multiple myeloma cells. Here, we demonstrate that the gene encoding oncogenic microRNA-21 (miR-21) is controlled by an upstream enhancer containing 2 Stat3 binding sites strictly conserved since the first observed evolutionary ...

BACKGROUND B cell-specific Moloney murine leukemia virus integration site 1 (Bmi-1) plays an important role in regulating stemness in some kinds of cancer. However, the mechanisms remain unclear. This study was to investigate whether and how Bmi-1 regulates stemness of gastric cancer. METHODS We firstly explored the role of Bmi-1 in regulating stem cell-like features in gastric cancer. Second...