MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are single-stranded RNA molecules that measure approximately 21-23 nucleotides in length, and they inhibit protein translation or mRNA degradation by binding to the 3'UTRs of messenger RNAs (mRNAs)2,29. Accumulating evidence has demonstrated that miRNAs participate in a variety of biological functions through negative regulatory genes, including cell proliferation, apoptosis, and inflammation, and have a strong correlation with disease mechanisms, especially cardiovascular disease mechanisms. Research shows that miRNAs play important roles in the pathology of myocardial apoptosis, fibrosis, and hypertrophy after MI. Moreover, bulk of of studies have indicated that miRNAs have the potential to serve as alternative biomarkers for the diagnosis of MI. For example, some exosomal miRNAs, such as miR-1, miR-133, miR-208a, and miR-499, are significantly different in MI patients compared with the normal group21. Therefore, the identification of miRNAs with different expression levels before and after MI intervention is of great significance for the diagnosis and prognosis of MI.
In this study, we have identified 141 differentially expressed miRNAs after surgical therapy compared with before surgical therapy of MI, including 94 downregulated and 47 upregulated miRNAs. Some of these miRNAs have been reported to be related to MI. Yuan et al. 33 found that miR-144-3p promotes cell proliferation, migration and collagen production by targeting PTEN in myocardial fibroblasts. This indicats that miR-144-3p-mediated PTEN regulation may be a new therapeutic target for myocardial fibrosis after myocardial infarction. Yan et al.31 found that miR-499a-5p was significantly upregulated in Sudden cardiac death samples compared with control samples, which may serve as an independent diagnostic biomarker for sudden cardiac death. A recent systematic review 28 demonstrated that miR-499a-5p and miR-1-3p are promising MI biomarkers because of their satisfactory diagnostic accuracy and short time window (within 4 hours of symptoms). Velle-Forbord et al.27 showed that miR-151a-5p can be used as a predictive biomarker of MI. Liu et al. 13 found that miR-199a-5p is upregulated in am ischemia-reperfusion model, and knocking out miR-199a-5p can prevent ischemia-reperfusion-induced cardiomyocyte apoptosis by targeting the HIF-1α-GSK3β-mPTP axis. This indicates that knocking out miR-199a-5p may be a potential target for the treatment of MI patients.
Our research shows that the target genes of these differentially expressed miRNAs after surgical therapy compared with before surgical therapy of MI are significantly correlated with the FoxO signaling pathway, Hippo signaling pathway, HIF-1 signaling pathway, Wnt signaling pathway, and mTOR signaling pathway. Studies18,25 have shown that these signaling pathways play important roles in cardiac development and diseases. The FoxO fMIly proteins include FoxO1, FoxO3, FoxO4 and FoxO6, Zhu et al.37 claimed that FoxO4 can promote the early inflammatory response of myocardial infarction through endothelial Arg1. Tian et al.26 found that the MST1-Hippo pathway is activated in MI and promotes the inflammatory response of cardiomyocytes by inhibiting the HO-1 signaling pathway. The HIF-1 signaling pathway is a stress signaling pathway in hypoxia, that can protect the myocardium by regulating the function of HIF-1α10,36. Wnt signaling pathways are essential in heart development and active in the post-MI adult heart20. Inhibition of the Wnt signaling pathway has been shown to be beneficial to MI by improving heart remodeling3. Studies have shown that mTORC2 has an important anti-remodeling effect on MI24. These results suggest that these miRNAs may play important roles in the occurrence and development of MI, and may serve as diagnostic and prognostic markers as well as potential targets for treatment.
STE may be applied to the evaluation of systolic and diastolic dysfunction, and its role in predicting left ventricular remodelling after MI has been confirmed which represents an important prognostic datum14. hsa-miR-4798-3p, hsa-miR-371a-3p, and hsa-miR-4735-5p were differentially expressed and inconsistently up- and downregulated between the two groups in AMI patients compared with normal samples and after surgical therapy compared with before surgical therapy for AMI. In addition, they are strongly correlated with GLS. GLS and LVEF are considered to be markers of subclinical LV dysfunction35. With the gradual reduction of myocardial perfusion, the LS of the myocardium approximately decrease by 50%. Therefore, it is considered that the reduction in LS may be an important early-stage index to reflect the reduced systolic function of the heart38. 3D-GLS can predict long-term prognosis after ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction (STEMI), and the combination of 3D-GLS and 3D-GCS can improve the accuracy of these predictions8. Keeping in mind the above results and discussion, we may claim that these three miRNAs may be used as a prognostic assessment of MI in future.