Abstract
MicroRNAs have been demonstrated to be involved in human diseases, including cardiovascular diseases. Growing evidences suggest that microRNA-155, a typical multifunctional microRNA, plays a crucial role in hematopoietic lineage differentiation, immunity, inflammation, viral infections, and vascular remodeling, which is linked to cardiovascular diseases such as coronary artery disease, abdominal aortic aneurysm, heart failure, and diabetic heart disease. The effects of microRNA-155 in different cell types through different target genes result in different mechanisms in diseases. MicroRNA-155 has been intensively studied in atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease. Contradictory results of microRNA-155 either promoting or preventing the pathophysiological process of atherosclerosis illustrate the complexity of this pleiotropic molecule. Therefore, more comprehensive studies of the underlying mechanisms of microRNA-155 involvement in cardiovascular diseases are required. Furthermore, a recent clinical trial of Miravirsen targeting microRNA-122 sheds light on exploiting microRNA-155 as a novel target to develop effective therapeutic strategies for cardiovascular diseases in the near future.
Highlights
Cardiovascular diseases involve the heart and/or blood vessels
MiRNAs have been shown to be involved in cardiovascular remodeling [5, 6], which results in cardiovascular diseases such as coronary artery disease (CAD), abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA), and heart failure (HF)
Many miRNAs play a role in some aspects of cardiovascular remodeling, for example, miRNA-21-3p in sepsis-associated cardiac dysfunction, miRNA-433 in cardiac fibrosis, miRNA-33 and miRNA145/143 in atherosclerosis, miRNA-21 and miRNA-320 in CAD, and miRNA-1 and miRNA-133 in HF [7,8,9,10], while miRNA-222 protects against pathological cardiac remodeling [11]
Summary
Cardiovascular diseases involve the heart and/or blood vessels. MiRNA-155 was first discovered in children with Burkitt Lymphoma [13] and further found to act as an oncogene or a tumor suppressor in different types of cancer [14], growing evidences suggest that miRNA-155 has been considered as an important pleiotropic regulator of cell homeostasis and a typical multifunctional miRNA that regulates multiple pathophysiological pathways in hematopoietic lineage differentiation, immunity, inflammation, viral infections, and cardiovascular diseases [15, 16]. To fully elucidate the involvement of miRNA-155 in cardiovascular diseases, a review is given here to discuss the emerging role of miRNA-155 in CAD, aneurysm formation, HF, and diabetic heart disease (DHD)
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