Cell Rep: microRNA molecule that can connect the immune system with brain cells

November 15, 2019 / Biovalley bio on / -- recently, many studies have found that schizophrenia or bi-directional affective disorder have a high genetic similarity, and the disease-specific changes in the brain cells of the two groups show an overlap rate of more than 70%, and these changes will affect gene expression; recently, a report published in the international journal Cell reports In the previous study, scientists from the University of Goth and the University of Siberia in Jerusalem revealed the gender specific bias in these changes, as well as the cellular control mechanism based on the endogenous short chain RNA chain Image source: Wikipedia In this paper, the researchers revealed the key role of microRNAs in gene expression control in all human cells Using one microRNA to target the acting gene can effectively inhibit its expression, but the main problem is that researchers are faced with various combinations of possibilities The human body can express about 2500 microRNAs, and one microRNA can affect hundreds or even hundreds To thousands of genes Based on this, the researchers used RNA sequencing and Bioinformatics The technology analyzed the gene expression in the brain of patients and cultured human nerve cells They found that there were some differences in the expression of immune related genes between men and women, especially the genes related to cytokines, which are the messenger substances of immune cells The cultured male and female nerve cells were exposed to these cytokines for research They found that these neurons can be transformed into cholinergic neurons (defined by the use of neurotransmitter acetylcholine) In the process of exposure, the researchers sequenced microRNAs at multiple time points, so that they could draw a clear map of microRNA interaction between the immune system and nerve cells Then the researchers identified 17 partially specific microRNAs family components, and formed a wide network of 12495 regulatory genes Using the multi-level selection process, the researchers identified most of the microRNAs that were affected At the same time, they carried out experiments to confirm their functions Finally, they identified two specific expression families: mir-10 and mir-199, which may serve as the interaction interface between cytokines and cholinergic function Because of high heredity Because of the complexity and the inability to develop traditional therapies, mental diseases once became the research field that scientists wanted to develop new therapies The current research results show that there seems to be some similarities between the clinical differences between men and women affected by diseases The mechanism based on microRNA may be able to open up for researchers by affecting the expression of a large number of disease-related genes This is the most potential way to find alternatives to traditional antipsychotic drugs In the end, the researchers said that this study comprehensively revealed the interaction mechanism of microRNAs and provided new ideas and clues for them to develop new psychotherapy in the later stage Original sources: Sebastian lobentanzer, geula Hanin, Jochen Klein, et al Integrated transcription reviews semi quantitative control of the streamlined / neurokine interface in schizophrenia and bipolar discorder Cell reports, 2019; 29 (3): 764 doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2019.09.017