Noncoding RNA miR-205-5p mediates osteoporosis pathogenesis and osteoblast differentiation by regulating RUNX2

As a kind of noncoding RNAs, microRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in disease pathogenesis by regulating gene expression. However, the molecular mechanism of miRNAs in osteoporosis remains largely unknown. In the present study, we aim to explore the genome-wide miRNAs expression profile and the regulatory mechanism of miR-205-5p in osteoporosis. A total of 72 differentially expressed miRNAs were identified in osteoporosis via microarray technology and bioinformatics analysis. We focused on one of the abnormally expressed miRNAs, miR-205-5p, which was previously unknown in osteoporosis. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) results showed that miR-205-5p was upregulated in osteoporosis samples and its expression was gradually decreased during osteogenic differentiation. Besides, miR-205-5p overexpression could inhibit the activity of osteoblast markers, including collagen, type I, α 1 (COL1A1) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) while miR-205-5p inhibition showed the opposite results. Moreover, bioinformatics analysis identified the potential targets of miR-205-5p, including runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX2), SMAD1 and BCL6, etc. The dual-luciferase reporter assay confirmed RUNX2 was directly targeted by miR-205-5p. Furthermore, the rescue experiments showed that RUNX2 overexpression could significantly weaken the effect of miR-205-5p on osteoblast markers, indicating that miR-205-5p may inhibit osteogenic differentiation by targeting RUNX2.