Functional omics analyses reveal only minor effects of microRNAs on human somatic stem cell differentiation

Sci Rep. 2020 Feb 24;10(1):3284. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-60065-8.

Abstract

The contribution of microRNA-mediated posttranscriptional regulation on the final proteome in differentiating cells remains elusive. Here, we evaluated the impact of microRNAs (miRNAs) on the proteome of human umbilical cord blood-derived unrestricted somatic stem cells (USSC) during retinoic acid (RA) differentiation by a systemic approach using next generation sequencing analysing mRNA and miRNA expression and quantitative mass spectrometry-based proteome analyses. Interestingly, regulation of mRNAs and their dedicated proteins highly correlated during RA-incubation. Additionally, RA-induced USSC demonstrated a clear separation from native USSC thereby shifting from a proliferating to a metabolic phenotype. Bioinformatic integration of up- and downregulated miRNAs and proteins initially implied a strong impact of the miRNome on the XXL-USSC proteome. However, quantitative proteome analysis of the miRNA contribution on the final proteome after ectopic overexpression of downregulated miR-27a-5p and miR-221-5p or inhibition of upregulated miR-34a-5p, respectively, followed by RA-induction revealed only minor proportions of differentially abundant proteins. In addition, only small overlaps of these regulated proteins with inversely abundant proteins in non-transfected RA-treated USSC were observed. Hence, mRNA transcription rather than miRNA-mediated regulation is the driving force for protein regulation upon RA-incubation, strongly suggesting that miRNAs are fine-tuning regulators rather than active primary switches during RA-induction of USSC.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cell Differentiation
  • Cell Proliferation
  • Chromatography, Liquid
  • Computational Biology
  • Fetal Blood / cytology*
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Gene Expression Regulation
  • High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
  • Humans
  • MicroRNAs / metabolism*
  • Peptides / chemistry
  • Phenotype
  • Proteome
  • Proteomics
  • Stem Cells / cytology*
  • Tandem Mass Spectrometry
  • Transcriptome
  • Tretinoin / pharmacology*

Substances

  • MIRN221 microRNA, human
  • MIRN27 microRNA, human
  • MIRN34 microRNA, human
  • MicroRNAs
  • Peptides
  • Proteome
  • Tretinoin