The Role of MicroRNAs in Diabetic Complications—Special Emphasis on Wound Healing

Genes

João Moura¹  Elisabet Børsheim² 

[1] Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra 3004-517, Portugal; E-Mail:;Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center, Little Rock, Arkansas, AR 72202, USA; E-Mail:

关键词: microRNA;    diabetes;    macrovascular and microvascular complications;    skin;    wound healing;    inflammation;    vascular disease;    diagnostic biomarkers;    therapeutic targets;   

DOI  :  10.3390/genes5040926

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Overweight and obesity are major problems in today’s society, driving the prevalence of diabetes and its related complications. It is important to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the chronic complications in diabetes in order to develop better therapeutic approaches for these conditions. Some of the most important complications include macrovascular abnormalities, e.g., heart disease and atherosclerosis, and microvascular abnormalities, e.g., retinopathy, nephropathy and neuropathy, in particular diabetic foot ulceration. The highly conserved endogenous small non-coding RNA molecules, the micro RNAs (miRNAs) have in recent years been found to be involved in a number of biological processes, including the pathogenesis of disease. Their main function is to regulate post-transcriptional gene expression by binding to their target messenger RNAs (mRNAs), leading to mRNA degradation, suppression of translation or even gene activation. These molecules are promising therapeutic targets and demonstrate great potential as diagnostic biomarkers for disease. This review aims to describe the most recent findings regarding the important roles of miRNAs in diabetes and its complications, with special attention given to the different phases of diabetic wound healing.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.