Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

MiR-19a promotes proliferation and inhibits apoptosis of placental trophoblasts via PTEN pathway

Jing Zhou¹, Ning Ma¹, Weiying Lu¹, Zhi Zhou¹, Suju Liu²

¹Hainan Women and Childrenâ€™s Medical Center, Haikou, Hainan, China; ²Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Jilin Province FAW General Hospital, Changchun, Jilin, China.

For correspondence:- Suju Liu Email: liusuju987@163.com Tel:+8613756269452

Accepted: 28 January 2023 Published: 27 February 2023

Citation: Zhou J, Ma N, Lu W, Zhou Z, Liu S. MiR-19a promotes proliferation and inhibits apoptosis of placental trophoblasts via PTEN pathway. Trop J Pharm Res 2023; 22(2):261-270 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v22i2.6

© 2023 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To screen the micro-ribonucleic acids (miRNAs) in the pathological processes of preeclampsia (PE), and to assess their effects on the proliferation and apoptosis of HTR-8/SVneo cells.

Methods: The miRNAs in PE patients and healthy puerperae were screened out using miRNA microarray assay, and verified through low-throughput quantitative reverse transcription- polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The effects of expression level of miR-19a on proliferation and cycle of HTR-8/SVneo cells were determined using cell counting kit (CCK)-8 assay and propidium iodide (PI) staining, respectively. The influence of the expression level of miR-19a on apoptosis of HTR-8/SVneo cells was evaluated using Annexin V-fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)/PI staining. Subsequently, luciferase reporter gene assay, CCK-8 assay and Annexin V-FITC/PI staining were conducted, respectively.

Results: Serum miR-19a was significantly decreased in PE patients, and a high level of miR-19a led to increase in the proliferation of HTR-8/SVneo cells. Decreased level of miR-19a arrested HTR-8/SVneo cell cycle at G1 phase, while increase in the miR-19a level repressed the apoptosis of HTR-8/SVneo cells. The PTEN was a direct target of miR-19a, and overexpression of miR-19a promoted the activation of Akt signaling pathway, thereby significantly decreasing the expression levels of downstream phosphorylated p21/p21 (p-p21/p21), p-p27/p27 and p-glycogen synthase kinase-3 beta (GSK3β)/GSK3β. Compared with those in cells transfected with empty vectors, the pro-proliferative and anti-apoptotic effects of miR-19a weakened in HTR-8/SVneo cell lines with overexpressed PTEN.

Conclusion: MiR-19a targets PTEN in order to activate Akt signaling pathway, thereby promoting proliferation, and inhibiting apoptosis of HTR-8/SVneo cells. This provides new drug targets that can be investigated for future treatment of PE.

Keywords: PTEN, Preeclampsia, Trophoblast proliferation, Apoptosis