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MicroRNA expression profile in hyperoxia-exposed newborn mice during the development of bronchopulmonary dysplasia
Xiaoying Zhang1, Wei Peng, Sheng Zhang
1Department of Pediatrics, BaYi Children's Hospital of The General Military Hospital of Beijing People's Liberation Army, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
Background:
Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a chronic lung disease of preterm neonates; the underlying pathogenesis is not fully understood. MicroRNAs (length 21-25 nucleotides) are ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules that have important functions in development, cellular differentiation, apoptosis, proliferation, and migration; very little is known regarding their role in developmental lung diseases.
Methods:
We exposed neonatal mice to either room air or 60% oxygen, beginning at birth, and we used microRNA microarray and real-time polymerase chain reaction on lung samples.
Results:
The hyperoxia-exposed mice developed a lung injury that mimicked human BPD. Fifty-one microRNAs shared similar profiles in the hyperoxia-exposed BPD lungs and the normal lungs, which indicates that those microRNAs might play a protective role during the septation process. In the BPD lungs, compared to the control lungs, 14 microRNAs were up-regulated, and 7 microRNAs were down-regulated, which indicates that these microRNAs might play an important role in the development of BPD. Some of the candidate microRNAs can regulate cell proliferation.
Conclusions:
To our knowledge, this study is the first to identify microRNAs associated with BPD development, which provides a clue for further investigation of their function in BPD development.
