NF-κB mediated miR-130a modulation in lung microvascular cell remodeling: Implication in pulmonary hypertension

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a progressive pulmonary vascular disease which is associated with pulmonary arterial endothelial cells (PAEC) dysfunction and pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells proliferation. Moreover, inflammation is contributing a critical role in EC dysfunction and remains elusive. Nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) is a master transcriptional regulator in various cardiovascular pathologies; but, NF-κB's role in EC dysfunction in unknown. Our previous study using cardiac and lung specific IκBα mutant mice (3M and IKBM) showed that PAH induced right ventricular hypertrophy (RVH) was prevented in monocrotaline (MCT) treated 3M and IKBM mice, compared to the wild-type mice. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) have emerged as a new class of post-transcriptional regulators in vascular remodeling; but, NF-κB regulated miRNA modulation in EC dysfunction is unknown. Using miRNA array analysis, we identified miR-130a which is upregulated in MCT-induced PAH mouse model, as a possible candidate to study. We showed that overexpressing miR-130a in lung microvascular endothelial cells (MVEC) promoted activation of α-smooth muscle actin, a critical component in endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition in EC remodeling. In this study, we demonstrated that bone morphogenetic protein receptor 2 (BMPR2) was a target for miR-130a and miR-130a was regulated by NF-κB which controlled apoptosis and vascular genes in MVEC. The findings reveal that NF-κB-mediated miR-130a modulation is critical in lung vascular remodeling.