Profiling of miRNA expression in mice kidney with diabetic nephropathy

Backgrounds Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is one of the complications of diabetes mellitus (DM) and the worldwide prevalence of DN has continued to increase. DN causes cellular stress and inflammation, which induces death of renal cells and dysfunction of blood vessels. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small interfering RNAs that negatively regulate mRNA gene expression. Various human diseases are attributed to aberrant miRNAs expression, and miRNAs levels are used as markers for diagnosis and classification of diseases. However, the profile of miRNAs in DN mouse have not been fully explained, we analyzed miRNAs expression in the kidney of diabetic mice. Methods C57BL6 male mice were injected with streptozotocin (50 mg/kg body weight) for five consecutive days to induce DM. Mice were sacrificed after 16 weeks and RNAs were extracted from the kidneys and analyzed via microarray profiling. Results Our results confirmed that 137 miRNAs expression was altered in DM. These miRNAs showed pairwise correlations with 48 mRNAs in DM kidney. Furthermore, Differential expressed miRNAs were characterized by Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis and signaling pathway using DAVID. Conclusion Our findings may provide that changes in miRNA expression in mice with diabetic nephropathy influences disease progression and might provide insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying DN.