Wnt antagonist, secreted frizzled-related protein 1, is involved in prenatal skeletal muscle development and is a target of miRNA-1/206 in pigs

BMC Mol Biol. 2015 Mar 8:16:4. doi: 10.1186/s12867-015-0035-7.

Abstract

Background: The Wnt signaling pathway is involved in the control of cell proliferation and differentiation during skeletal muscle development. Secreted frizzled-related proteins (SFRPs), such as SFRP1, function as inhibitors of Wnt signaling. MicroRNA-1/206(miRNA-1/206) is specifically expressed in skeletal muscle and play a critical role in myogenesis. The miRNA-mRNA profiles and bioinformatics study suggested that the SFRP1 gene was potentially regulated by miRNA-1/206 during porcine skeletal muscle development.

Methods: To understand the function of SFRP1 and miRNA-1/206 in swine myogenesis, we first predicted the targets of miRNA-1/206 with the TargetScan and PicTar programs, and analyzed the molecular characterization of the porcine SFRP1 gene. We performed a temporal-spatial expression analysis of SFRP1 mRNA and miRNA-206 in Tongcheng pigs (a Chinese indigenous breed) by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, and conducted the co-expression analyses of SFRP1 and miRNA-1/206. Subsequently, the interaction between SFRP1 and miRNA-1/206 was validated via dual luciferase and Western blot assays.

Results: The bioinformatics analysis predicted SFRP1 to be a target of miRNA-1/206. The expression level of the SFRP1 was highly varied across numerous pig tissues and it was down-regulated during porcine skeletal muscle development. The expression level of the SFRP1 was significantly higher in the embryonic skeletal compared with postnatal skeletal muscle, whereas miR-206 showed the inverse pattern of expression. A significant negative correlation was observed between the expression of miR-1/206 and SFRP1 during porcine skeletal muscle development (p <0.05). Dual luciferase assay and Western-blot results demonstrated that SFRP1 was a target of miR-1/206 in porcine iliac endothelial cells.

Conclusions: Our results indicate that the SFRP1 gene is regulated by miR-1/206 and potentially affects skeletal muscle development. These findings increase understanding of the biological functions and the regulation of the SFRP1 gene in mammals.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Computational Biology / methods
  • Embryo, Mammalian / cytology
  • Embryo, Mammalian / metabolism
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental
  • Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins
  • MicroRNAs / genetics*
  • MicroRNAs / metabolism*
  • Muscle Development
  • Muscle, Skeletal / growth & development*
  • Muscle, Skeletal / metabolism
  • Proteins / genetics*
  • Proteins / metabolism*
  • Swine
  • Wnt Signaling Pathway

Substances

  • Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins
  • MicroRNAs
  • Proteins
  • WD repeat containing planar cell polarity effector