Involvement of MicroRNA in the Induction of Drug-metabolizing Enzymes

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs of about 20 nucleotides in length and participate in the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. Accumulating evidence indicates that miRNA binds to 3'-UTR of its target mRNAs and thereby destabilizes the transcripts or suppresses the translation. It is expected that miRNAs could have diverse functions and therefore play a role in the gene expression caused by the drug treatment, which have yet to be determined. Demonstration of the participation of specific miRNA in the drug-mediated gene expression would make it a biomarker for the toxicological assessment and help an understanding of molecular machinery of the drug-drug interaction. Under these backgrounds, we investigated the change of miRNAs in the liver of mice treated with phenobarbital, a typical inducer for drug-metabolizing enzymes, and demonstrate the participation of miRNAs in the phenobarbital-regulated gene expression. We investigated the relationship between phenobarbital-mediated changes in miRNA and mRNA by using Agilent miRNA microarray and DNA microarray, followed by real time RT-PCR. From these experiments, it was suggested that the phenobarbital-induced changes in cyp2c29 and mrp3 are regulated by miR-30a and miR-29b, respectively. In addition, we obtained evidence that indicates a phenobarbital-mediated decrease in miR-122, a highly abundant liver-specific miRNA, leads to the activation of the transcription factor CAR and thereby induces drug-metabolizing enzymes.