Expression and role of P-element-induced wimpy testis-interacting RNA in diabetic-retinopathy in mice

As one of the major microvascular complications of diabetes, diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the leading cause of blindness in the working age population. Because the extremely complex pathogenesis of DR has not been fully clarified, the occurrence and development of DR is closely related to tissue ischemia and hypoxia and neovascularization The formation of retinal neovascularization (RNV) has great harm to the visual acuity of patients.

To investigate the expression of P-element-induced wimpy testis-interacting RNA (piRNA) in proliferative DR mice and select piRNA related to RNV.

One hundred healthy C57BL/6J mice were randomly divided into a normal group as control group (CG) and proliferative DR (PDR) group as experimental group (EG), with 50 mice in each group. Samples were collected from both groups at the same time, and the lesions of mice were evaluated by hematoxylin and eosin staining and retinal blood vessel staining. The retinal tissues were collected for second-generation high-throughput sequencing, and the differentially expressed piRNA between the CG and EG was detected, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was conducted for verification. The differentially obtained piRNA target genes and expression profiles were enrichment analysis based on gene annotation (Gene Ontology) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes.

In the CG there was no perfusion area, neovascularization and endothelial nucleus broke through the inner boundary membrane of retinap. In the EG, there were a lot of nonperfused areas, new blood vessels and endothelial nuclei breaking through the inner boundary membrane of the retina. There was a statistically significant difference in the number of vascular endothelial nuclei breaking through the inner retinal membrane between the two groups. High-throughput sequencing analysis showed that compared with the CG, a total of 79 piRNAs were differentially expressed in EG, among which 43 piRNAs were up-regulated and 36 piRNAs were down-regulated. Bioinformatics analysis showed that the differentially expressed piRNAs were mainly concentrated in the signaling pathways of angiogenesis and cell proliferation. Ten piRNAs were selected for PCR, and the results showed that the expression of piR-MMU-40373735, piR-MMU-61121420, piR-MMU-55687822, piR-MMU-1373887 were high, and the expression of piR-MMU-7401535, piR-MMU-4773779, piR-MMU-1304999, and piR-MMU-5160126 were low, which were consistent with the sequencing results.

In the EG, the abnormal expression of piRNA is involved in the pathway of angiogenesis and cell proliferation, suggesting that piRNAs have some regulatory function in proliferative diabetic-retinopathy.