Abstract
Hepatic fibrosis is a reversible wound healing process following liver injury. Although this process is necessary for maintaining liver integrity, severe excessive extracellular matrix accumulation (ECM) could lead to permanent scar formation and destroy the liver structure. The activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) is a key event in hepatic fibrosis. Previous studies show that most antifibrotic therapies focus on the apoptosis of HSCs and the prevention of HSC activation. Noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) play a substantial role in HSC activation and are likely to be biomarkers or therapeutic targets for the treatment of hepatic fibrosis. This review summarizes and discusses the previously reported ncRNAs, including the microRNAs, long noncoding RNAs, and circular RNAs, highlighting their regulatory roles and interactions in the signaling pathways that regulate HSC activation in hepatic fibrosis.
Highlights
Introductionhepatic stellate cells (HSCs) are quiescent non-proliferative liver cells with intracellular lipid droplets containing vitamin A [6]
We summarized and discussed the roles of the main three classes of Noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs), the microRNA, long noncoding RNA, and circular RNA, as well as their interactions in regulating the hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) activation during hepatic fibrosis development
A study of CCI(4)-induced mouse fibrosis models and the isolated primary mouse HSCs showed that long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) Snhg7 acts as a miR-378a-3p sponge, and this suppression of miR-378a-3p led to the upregulation of Dishevelled segment polarity protein 2 (Dvl2) expression and increased the expression of Ctnnb1 [133]
Summary
HSCs are quiescent non-proliferative liver cells with intracellular lipid droplets containing vitamin A [6]. Upon pathological insults such as toxins, metabolic or viral diseases leading to liver injury, a trans-differentiation of HSCs to myofibroblasts occurs [5]. RNAs (ncRNAs) play significant roles in regulating liver diseases, including hepatic fibrosis [12,13,14,15]. We summarized and discussed the roles of the main three classes of ncRNAs, the microRNA (miRNA), long noncoding RNA (lncRNA), and circular RNA (circRNA), as well as their interactions in regulating the HSC activation during hepatic fibrosis development
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