Implications for miR-339-5p regulation of trophoblast proliferation and migration in placentas associated with porcine intrauterine growth retardation using integrated transcriptome sequencing analysis

Abstract

Placental dysfunction is considered as one of the main etiologies of fetal intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR). MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been demonstrated to be a vital epigenetic modification involved in regulating the placental function and pregnancy outcomes in mammals. However, the mechanisms underlying placenta-specific miRNAs involved in the occurrence and development of pig IUGR remain unclear. In this work, we compared the placental morphologies of piglets with IUGR and normal birth weight (NBW) by using histomorphological analysis and performed a miRNA–mRNA integrative analysis of the gene expression profiles of IUGR and NBW placentas through RNA sequencing. We also investigated the role of differentially expressed ssc-miR-339-5p/GRIK3 through an in vitro experiment on porcine trophoblast cells (PTr2). IUGR piglets had significantly lower birth weight, placental weight, placental efficiency, and placental villus and capillary densities compared with the NBW piglets (P < 0.05). A total of 81 differentially expressed miRNAs and 726 differentially expressed genes in the placentas were screened out between the IUGR and NBW groups. The miRNA–mRNA interaction networks revealed the key core miRNA (ssc-miR-339-5p) and its corresponding target genes. Subsequently, we found that upregulation of ssc-miR-339-5p significantly inhibited the migration and proliferation of PTr2 cells (P < 0.05). The dual-luciferase reporter system showed that GRIK3 was the target gene of ssc-miR-339-5p, and the transcription level of GRIK3 may be negatively regulated by ssc-miR-339-5p. Additionally, overexpression of ssc-miR-339-5p significantly increased (P < 0.05) the mRNA expression levels of genes involved in the cytokine–cytokine receptor interaction pathway. These results indicate that ssc-miR-339-5p may affect the migration and proliferation of trophoblast cells by regulating the expression of GRIK3 and altering the placental inflammatory response, resulting in a suboptimal morphology and function of the placenta and the development of pig IUGR.