MicroRNA-21 Contributes to Acute Liver Injury in LPS-Induced Sepsis Mice by Inhibiting PPAR α Expression

Xianjin Du; Miao Wu; Dan Tian; Jianlin Zhou; Lu Wang; Liying Zhan

doi:10.1155/2020/6633022

MicroRNA-21 Contributes to Acute Liver Injury in LPS-Induced Sepsis Mice by Inhibiting PPAR α Expression

PPAR Res. 2020 Dec 22:2020:6633022. doi: 10.1155/2020/6633022. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Xianjin Du¹, Miao Wu², Dan Tian², Jianlin Zhou³, Lu Wang¹, Liying Zhan¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Critical Care Medicine, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, 238 Jiefang Road, Wuchang, Wuhan, Hubei 430060, China.
² Department of Emergency, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, 238 Jiefang Road, Wuchang, Wuhan, Hubei 430060, China.
³ Department of Orthopedics, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, 238 Jiefang Road, Wuchang, Wuhan, Hubei 430060, China.

Abstract

The severity of sepsis may be associated with excessive inflammation, thus leading to acute liver injury. MicroRNA-21 is highly expressed in the liver of a variety of inflammation-related diseases, and PPARα is also proved to participate in regulating inflammation. In the present study, the LPS-induced sepsis model was established. We found that microRNA-21 expression was upregulated in the liver of sepsis mice, and microRNA-21 inhibition significantly reduced the liver injury. The expression of liver injury markers, inflammation cytokines, and PPARα in the septic mice was higher than in antagomir-21 treated septic mice. In addition, we also found that PPARα is the target gene of microRNA-21; PPARα antagonist GW6471 could reverse the effect of antagomir-21. In conclusion, our study illustrated that microRNA-21 exacerbate acute liver injury in sepsis mice by inhibiting PPARα expression.