LincRNA-p21: A Double-Edged Sword in Ethanol-Induced Liver Damage and Its Nanoparticle Solution

Background: Alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) is the leading cause of liver disease-related deaths globally, necessitating new treatments. This study investigates the role of long intergenic noncoding RNA (lincRNA)-p21 in ALD and explores therapeutic strategies for liver injury.

We identified lncRNAs linked to ethanol-induced liver injury using the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Experiments were conducted to assess the function of lincRNA-p21 in ALD both in vivo and in vitro. Autophagy was analyzed through electron microscopy, autophagic flow, and protein expression. Bioinformatics explored underlying mechanisms, focusing on m6A modification of lincRNA-p21 by ALKBH5 using RNA Immunoprecipitation (RIP) and meRIP-PCR. Ferroptosis was induced with erastin, and its levels were measured by cell ROS and viability. A nanoplatform-based system was developed to co-deliver a plasmid encoding lincRNA-p21 and a ferroptosis inhibitor. We developed a nanoplatform-based co-delivery system to deliver a plasmid encoding lincRNA-p21 and the ferroptosis inhibitor ferrostatin-1 (ferr-1/lincRNA-p21@NP) to the liver.

LincRNA-p21 protected liver cells against ethanol-induced injury by promoting autophagy. ALKBH5 mediated the m⁶A demethylation and lincRNA-p21 upregulation. However, we revealed a dual-edged sword function for lincRNA-p21 in ethanol-induced liver injury in mice. LincRNA-p21 reduced acute ethanol-induced cell injury by enhancing autophagy but exacerbated chronic ethanol-induced liver cell injury by increasing ferroptosis. In vivo and in vitro analyses showed favorable therapeutic effects of ferr-1/lincRNA-p21@NPs on ALD.

These results show that lincRNA-p21 affects autophagy and ferroptosis, and the ferr-1/lincRNA-p21@NP nanosystem can provide protection against ALD.