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Updated: Mar 20, 2026

A Model for Encephalomyosynangiosis Treatment after Middle Cerebral Artery Occlusion-Induced Stroke in Mice
Published on: June 22, 2022
Glycine confers neuroprotection through microRNA-301a/PTEN signaling
Juan Chen1,2, Yang Zhuang1, Zhi-Feng Zhang1
1Department of Physiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Medical Research Institute, Wuhan University School of Medicine, 185 Donghu Street, Wuhan, 430071, China.
Background:
Glycine is known to protect against neuronal death. However, the underlying mechanism remains to be elucidated. The microRNA-301a is involved in both biological and pathological processes. But it is not known whether microRNA-301a has a neuroprotective property. In this study, we aimed to determine whether glycine-induced neuroprotection requires microRNA-301a-dependent signaling.
Results:
We provided the first evidence that glycine increased the expression of microRNA-301a in cultured rat cortical neurons and protected against cortical neuronal death through up-regulation of microRNA-301a after oxygen-glucose deprivation. MicroRNA-301a directly bound the predicted 3'UTR target sites of PTEN and reduced PTEN expression in cortical neurons. We revealed that PTEN down-regulation by microRNA-301a mediated glycine-induced neuroprotective effect following oxygen-glucose deprivation.
Conclusions:
Our results suggest that 1) microRNA-301a is neuroprotective in oxygen-glucose deprivation-induced neuronal injury; 2) glycine is an upstream regulator of microRNA-301a; 3) glycine confers neuroprotection through microRNA-301a/PTEN signal pathway.

