Sciatic nerve injury can cause differential expression of microRNAs in dorsal root ganglia

Slit-Robo GTPase-activating protein 3 contains a Rho GAP domain that regulates the activities of Rho family GTPases and affects actin polymerization, which influences dendrite elaboration, neurite outgrowth and axon guidance, contributing to neural regeneration.

Anjie Lu, the Third Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, China and his team performed a microRNA microarray analysis and identified 23 microRNAs whose expression were significantly changed in rat dorsal root ganglia (DRG) after sciatic nerve injury (SNI). Bioinformatic analysis was used to determine microRNA-214 took srGAP3 as possible target gene and most correlated with axon guidance pathway. Quantitative reverse transcriptase-PCR and dual-luciferase reporter gene assay further confirmed the targeting relationship between microRNA-214 and srGAP3. In situ hybridization, western blot and immunofluorescence staining showed that microRNA-214 expression in rat DRG was decreased, while srGAP3 protein expression was gradually increased at 1-7 days after SNI.

The results indicate that SNI can cause the differential expression of microRNAs in DRG primary neurons in lumbar segment, srGAP3 is a target gene of microRNA-214, and there is a reverse relationship between microRNA-214 and srGAP3 expression. Related results were published in Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 9, No. 10, 2014).