MiR-29b-3p Inhibits the Inflammation Injury in Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells by Regulating SEC23A

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effects of miR-29b-3p on the inflammation injury of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and explore the underlying mechanisms. The effects of different concentrations of LPS (0, 1, 5 and 10 μg/mL) on inflammation injury in HUVECs are detected by ELISA, CCK-8, EdU, flow cytometry and western blot analyses to determine the optimal stimulus concentration. After stimulating HUVECs with 10 μg/mL LPS, the expression levels of miR-29b-3p are detected, and the effects of miR-29b-3p on inflammation injury are detected by ELISA, CCK-8, EdU, flow cytometry and western blot analyses. Bioinformatic analysis, luciferase reporter assay and confirmatory experiments are applied to identify the target gene bound with miR-29b-3p. Rescue experiments have verified the roles of miR-29b-3p and the target gene in inflammation injury. We found that pro-inflammatory factor was increased, apoptosis was promoted, and cell proliferation was inhibited after the treatment of LPS in HUVECs. Overexpression of miR-29b-3p inhibited LPS-induced inflammatory response and apoptosis while promoting proliferation in HUVECs. Besides, bioinformatics analysis indicated that SEC23A was the target gene of miR-29b-3p and the confirmatory experiments showed that SEC23A was negatively correlated with miR-29b-3p and positively correlated with LPS concentration. Rescue experiments revealed that overexpression of SEC23A partially enhanced the inflammation injury effects in LPS-induced HUVECs with overexpression of miR-29b-3p. Hence, miR-29b-3p repressed inflammatory response, cell apoptosis and promoted cell proliferation in LPS-induced HUVECs by targeting SEC23A, providing a potential target for treating sepsis.

Keywords: Inflammatory response; SEC23A; Sepsis; miR-29b-3p.