Allergic airway inflammation affects signaling pathways in adipose tissue via mRNA-miRNA interactions in the rat

Abstract

Previously, we observed that allergic sensitization altered the expression of miRNA profile in adipose tissue. Here, we hypothesized that these changes affect transcriptome in adipose tissue in airway allergic inflammation model. We assessed the gene expression profile adipose tissue in asthma animal model. Brown Norway rats were sensitized intranasally to house dust mite extract for 6 weeks. The control rats received PBS. For transcriptome analysis, Sure Print G3 Rat Gene Expression microarrays were used. Bioinformatic analysis was done using GeneSpring. MicroRNA-mRNA interactions were analyzed in miRTargetLink. Transcriptome in adipose tissue showed that 2263 genes were downregulated and 111 showed increased expression in sensitized rats. The upregulated genes were enriched in 8 pathways: chronic inflammatory response, leukocyte migration, neutrophil chemotaxis. The downregulated genes regulated olfactory transduction, circadian pathway and regulation of insulin secretion. Combining differentially expressed mRNAs with a set of 29 miRNAs, altered in adipose tissue in our previous study, showed that 33 pathways were significantly affected by miRNA-mRNA interactions in adipose tissue during allergic airway inflammation. The most significantly enriched signaling pathways were: PI3K-Akt, cAMP, Ras, neurotrophin, Rap1 and MAPK. Allergic airway inflammation in adipose tissue enhances inflammatory responses, but downregulates olfactory and circadian pathways and also influences several signaling pathways via miRNA-mRNA interactions. The study was supported by National Science Centre in Poland, grant no. 2019/35/B/NZ5/02906 (A.Szczepankiewicz).