UMMS Affiliation
Department of Neurology; Department of Neurobiology
Date
5-10-2010
Document Type
Article
Medical Subject Headings
3' Untranslated Regions; Animals; Base Sequence; Binding Sites; Cell Line; Frontotemporal Dementia; *Gene Expression Regulation; Gene Knockdown Techniques; Genes, Reporter; Glycoproteins; Humans; Intercellular Signaling Peptides and; Proteins; Intracellular Space; Luciferases; Mice; MicroRNAs; Molecular Sequence Data; NIH 3T3 Cells; Protein Binding; RNA, Messenger
Disciplines
Neuroscience and Neurobiology
Abstract
Progranulin deficiency is thought to cause some forms of frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a major early-onset age-dependent neurodegenerative disease. How progranulin (PGRN) expression is regulated is largely unknown. We identified an evolutionarily conserved binding site for microRNA-29b (miR-29b) in the 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) of the human PGRN (hPGRN) mRNA. miR-29b downregulates the expression of luciferase through hPGRN or mouse PGRN (mPGRN) 3'UTRs, and the regulation was abolished by mutations in the miR-29b binding site. To examine the direct effect of manipulating endogenous miR-29b on hPGRN expression, we established a stable NIH3T3 cell line that expresses hPGRN under the control of the cytomegalovirus promoter. Ectopic expression of miR-29b decreased hPGRN expression at the both mRNA and protein levels. Conversely, knockdown of endogenous miR-29b with locked nucleic acid increased the production and secretion of hPGRN in NIH3T3 cells. Endogenous hPGRN in HEK 293 cells was also regulated by miR-29b. These findings identify miR-29b as a novel posttranscriptional regulator of PGRN expression, raising the possibility that miR-29b or other miRNAs might be targeted therapeutically to increase hPGRN levels in some FTD patients.
Comments
Citation: Jiao J, Herl LD, Farese RV Jr, Gao F-B (2010) MicroRNA-29b Regulates the Expression Level of Human Progranulin, a Secreted Glycoprotein Implicated in Frontotemporal Dementia. PLoS ONE 5(5): e10551. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010551. Link to article on publisher's site
Copyright: © 2010 Jiao et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.