Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-26-2021

Publication Title

Cells

Keywords

JMG

JAX Source

Cells 2021 Aug 26; 10(9):2204

Volume

10

Issue

9

ISSN

2073-4409

PMID

34571853

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3390/cells10092204

Grant

CA034196, OD027052, DA048890, AI1332963, OD026440, DK104218

Abstract

The dysregulation of microRNA (miRNA) is implicated in cancer, inflammation, cardiovascular disorders, drug resistance, and aging. While most researchers study miRNA's role as a biomarker, for example, to distinguish between various sub-forms or stages of a given disease of interest, research is also ongoing to utilize these small nucleic acids as therapeutics. An example of a common pleiotropic disease that could benefit from miRNA-based therapeutics is inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which is characterized by chronic inflammation of the small and large intestines. Due to complex interactions between multiple factors in the etiology of IBD, development of therapies that effectively maintain remission for this disease is a significant challenge. In this review, we discuss the role of dysregulated miRNA expression in the context of clinical ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD)-the two main forms of IBD-and the various preclinical mouse models of IBD utilized to validate the therapeutic potential of targeting these miRNA. Additionally, we highlight advances in the development of genetically engineered animal models that recapitulate clinical miRNA expression and provide powerful preclinical models to assess the diagnostic and therapeutic promise of miRNA in IBD.

Comments

We thank Taneli Helenius for critical reading of the manuscript.

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.

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