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Aberrant upregulation of miR-21 in placental tissues of macrosomia

Journal of Perinatology volume 34, pages 658–663 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Objective:

With China’s rapid economic growth in the past 3 decades, an increase in rate of macrosomia has been reported in China. Fetal growth is a result of multiple factors including genetic potential for growth, maternal nutrition, maternal metabolism, endocrine factors and placental perfusion and function. However, the detailed mechanism of how macrosomia happened remains poorly known. Recent studies showed that the expression of a number of microRNAs (miRNAs) in placentas is involved in fetal growth. We hypothesized that aberrant expression of microRNA-21 (miR-21) and microRNA-16 (miR-16) in placenta is associated with macrosomia.

Study design:

Using quantitative real time PCR, we analyzed the expression level of miR-21 and miR-16 in terminal placentas of macrosomia pregnancies (n=35) and normal controls (n=35). Potential target genes of miRNA were predicted using TargetScan, miRanda and PicTar. Target genes were mapped to KEGG pathways using KEGG Mapper with an in-house Perl script with KEGG Gene IDs.

Result:

MiR-21 showed significant up-regulation in macrosomia (P=0.037). After controlling the potential confounders, multivariable logistic regression analysis suggested the risk of macrosomia increased, multivariable adjusted ORs of macrosomia for those in the highest tertile was 3.931 (95%CI: 1.049-14.736) compared with those in the lowest tertile in terms of miR-21 level. The target genes of miR-21 were involved in eight possible signaling pathways. They were pathways in P53 signaling pathway, MAPK signaling pathway, HIF-1 signaling pathway, TGF-beta signaling pathway and PI3K-Akt signaling pathway (P<0.001), Wnt signaling pathway, Jak-STAT signaling pathway and mTOR signaling pathway (P<0.05).

Conclusion:

Our study is the first to investigate the association between placental miRNA expression and macrosomia. Our results indicate that the expression level of miR-21 in placental tissue may be involved in the development of macrosomia.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all the study participants for their contributions. This study was supported by Changzhou Natural Science Foundation (CJ20130013), Major Program of Changzhou Health Bureau Funds (ZD201107) and Major Program of Natural Science Foundation of the Nanjing Medical University (2011NJMU230).

Author information

Author notes

  1. H Jiang and W Wu: These authors contributed equally to this work and are joint first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Perinatology Unit, Changzhou Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, Changzhou, Jiangsu, China

    H Jiang, M Zhang, Y Peng, T-t Miao, H Zhu & G Xu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Medicine, Institute of Toxicology, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China

    W Wu & J Li

  3. Key Laboratory of Modern Toxicology of Ministry of Education, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China

    W Wu & J Li

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  1. H Jiang
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Correspondence to G Xu.

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Jiang, H., Wu, W., Zhang, M. et al. Aberrant upregulation of miR-21 in placental tissues of macrosomia. J Perinatol 34, 658–663 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/jp.2014.58

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