Thursday, August 28, 2014

miRNA, Inflammation and Coronary Heart Disease

i-FectTM Delivers miRNA for the Study of Cardiovascular Pathogenesis

We have posted over 35 publications that reference use of our i-Fect Transfection Kit to deliver siRNA, miRNA and shRNA in vitro and in vivo. Results documented in these publications prove that this kit is both non-toxic and delivers ultra-high transfection efficiency.

Here i-Fect is used to silence miR-21 microRNAs. This miRNA stimulates pro-inflammatory pathways that are at the root of Coronary Heart Disease: Guo Weizao, Liu Huichen, Li Lin, Yang Man and Du Aihua. Regulation of lovastatin on a key inflammation-related microRNA in myocardial cells. Chinese Medical Journal 2014;127(16):2977-2981:10.3760/cma.j.issn.0366-6999.20140780...... miRNA functional inhibition assay Anti-miR miRNA antagonist for miR-21 (Ambion/Life Technologies, Grand Island, NY, USA) was transfected into H9c2(2-1) cells using iFect transfection kit (Neuromics, Edina, MN, USA) according to the manufacturer's manual...

Results:Inhibition of miR-21 upregulates STAT-3 and exerts a critical role in the upregulation of cardioprotective and anti-apoptotic proteins.



Fig: Inhibition of miR-21 attenuated the up-regulation of phosphorylation of STAT3 in H9c2(2-1) cells by lovastatin (LST) in lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treated cardiomyocytes. Combination of treatments are indicated under the image, the basic comparison was 1 vs 3. 

This study demonstrates the relationship between miR-21 and the STAT3 pathway in Coronary Heart Disease. Delivering inhibitory miRNA into cardiomyocytes was key to establishing this relationship. Further study could enable discovery of STAT3 related targets for CV protective drug. In the spirit of helping researchers find the best solutions and protocols for Gene Expression Analysis Studies, we will continue to post new findings.