MicroRNA-150: A potential regulator in pathogens infection and autoimmune diseases

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short non-coding RNAs that play an important role in post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. The past studies showed that miR-150 might emerge as a master regulator of gene expression during the immune cells differentiation and immune response process. Its regulation ability in immune cellular process might contribute to the host defense against invading pathogens, and dysregulated expression of miR-150 in immune cells might result in autoimmune diseases. This review summarized that miR-150 could regulate B cells, T cells and NK/iNKT cells differentiation and immune response. And also, this review provides a comprehensive view on the association of miR-150 and autoimmune diseases such as systemic sclerosis (SSc), multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and contact sensitivity. Especially, the duplex role of miR-150 in the fibrosis process might contribute to the pathomechanism of SSc. Though much remains to be explored about the roles of miR-150 in pathogenic infection and autoimmune diseases, targeting miR-150 may serve as a promising therapy strategy.

• Autoimmune diseases
• fibrosis
• immune cells
• microRNA-150
• pathogens infection

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. This work was partly supported by grants from the Key Project of the Education Department of Anhui Province Natural Science Research (Code: KJ2012A165, KJ2014A127) and Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Code: 1308085MH169).