Background: Severe burn injuries are associated with a persistent hypermetabolic response, which causes long-term loss of muscle mass that results in a clinical negative balance of nitrogen and muscle wasting. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play a critical role in post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression, which negatively regulates gene expression by promoting degradation of target mRNAs or inhibiting their translation. However, the mechanisms of skeletal muscle wasting after severe burn involved in miRNAs still remain unclear.
Methods: In this study, the alterations of miRNAs expression profile in skeletal muscles of thermal rats were detected at an early stage by microarray. All data were presented as mean±SD. Statistical analysis was determined by independent Student's t-test and one-way ANOVA. The significance was all set at p<0.05, and fold change cut-off was 2.0 for microarray. Significant differentially expressed miRNAs were identified through Volcano Plot filtering. Hierarchical clustering was performed using MEV software (v4.6, TIGR).
Results: Thousands of miRNAs could be examined in normal and injured tissues, but only 69 of these were significantly upregulated or down-regulated, which could be used to discriminate skeletal muscles of thermal rats from matched tissues.
Conclusion: The deregulated miRNAs probably play a potential role in the pathogenesis of skeletal muscle wasting in burn trauma.