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Published on: June 3, 2018
MicroRNAs regulating signaling pathways in cardiac fibrosis: potential role of the exercise training
Alex Cleber Improta-Caria1, Luis Felipe Rodrigues1, Victor Hugo Antonio Joaquim1
1Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the Exercise, Physical Education and Sport School, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Insights
Exercise training impacts cardiac fibrosis by modulating microRNA (miRNA) expression and signaling pathways. This review explores how miRNAs regulate cardiac fibrosis and how exercise influences these processes.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular Research
- Molecular Biology
- Exercise Physiology
Background:
- Cardiovascular and metabolic diseases cause cardiac fibrosis, a key factor in pathological cardiac remodeling.
- MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small RNA molecules regulating gene expression and are implicated in cardiac fibrosis.
- Exercise training benefits cardiovascular health and can attenuate cardiac fibrosis, but underlying mechanisms involving miRNAs are unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review the role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in regulating signaling pathways involved in cardiac fibrosis.
- To analyze how exercise training modulates miRNA expression and signaling pathways in the context of cardiac fibrosis.
Main Methods:
- Literature review focusing on studies investigating miRNA expression, signaling pathways, and cardiac fibrosis.
- Analysis of existing research on the effects of exercise training on miRNA regulation in cardiovascular diseases.
Main Results:
- MicroRNAs are key regulators of intracellular signaling pathways that control cardiac fibrosis.
- Exercise training demonstrably alters miRNA expression profiles, influencing fibrotic processes.
- Specific miRNAs and their targeted pathways involved in exercise-mediated attenuation of cardiac fibrosis are identified.
Conclusions:
- MicroRNAs represent a critical link between exercise and the modulation of cardiac fibrosis.
- Understanding these miRNA-mediated pathways offers potential therapeutic targets for cardiovascular diseases.
- Further research into exercise-regulated miRNAs could lead to novel strategies for managing cardiac fibrosis.
Abstract:
Cardiovascular and metabolic diseases such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and obesity develop long-term fibrotic processes in the heart, promoting pathological cardiac remodeling, including after myocardial infarction, reparative fibrotic processes also occur. These processes are regulated by many intracellular signaling pathways that have not yet been completely elucidated, including those associated with microRNA (miRNA) expression. miRNAs are small RNA transcripts (18-25 nucleotides in length) that act as posttranscriptionally regulators of gene expression, inhibiting or degrading one or more target messenger RNAs (mRNAs), and proven to be involved in many biological processes such as cell cycle, differentiation, proliferation, migration, and apoptosis, directly affecting the pathophysiology of several diseases, including cardiac fibrosis. Exercise training can modulate the expression of miRNAs and it is known to be beneficial in various cardiovascular diseases, attenuating cardiac fibrosis processes. However, the signaling pathways modulated by the exercise associated with miRNAs in cardiac fibrosis were not fully understood. Thus, this review aims to analyze the expression of miRNAs that modulate signaling pathways in cardiac fibrosis processes that can be regulated by exercise training.
