Functional study of the upregulation of miRNA-27a and miRNA-27b in 3T3-L1 cells in response to berberine

Abstract

Berberine is the major active component of Rhizoma Coptidis derived from a traditional Chinese herbal medicine and is known to regulate micro (mi)RNA levels, although the mechanism for this action remains unknown. The present study confirmed that treatment of 3T3‑L1 cells with berberine inhibited cell viability and differentiation in a dose‑ and time‑dependent manner, and significantly increased the mRNA expression levels of miRNA‑27a and miRNA‑27b. In addition, in 3T3‑L1 cells treated with berberine, overexpression of miRNA‑27a and miRNA‑27b improved the berberine-mediated inhibition of cell differentiation and reduction of triglyceride contents. By contrast, miRNA‑27a and miRNA‑27b inhibitors attenuated the berberine‑mediated inhibition of cell differentiation and reduction of triglyceride contents. Additionally, peroxisome proliferator‑activated receptors (PPAR)‑γ was confirmed to be a target of miRNA‑27a in the 3T3‑L1 cells. A dual‑luciferase reporter assay indicated that the expression of PPAR‑γ was negatively regulated by miRNA-27a. These findings may provide novel mechanistic insight into the antiobesity effects of certain compounds in traditional Chinese herbal medicine.

Berberine inhibits adipocyte differentiation, proliferation and adiposity through down-regulating galectin-3

“…proved that Gal-3 had a direct interaction with PPARγ and modulated its transcriptional activity 11 . Intriguingly, there were reports showed that in 3T3-L1 adipocytes, PPARγ was a target of both let-7d 32 and miR-27a 21 , and BBR was able to up-regulate these miRNAs, as proved by our results and a previous study 21 . Whether or not miR-27a is involved in the modulation of Gal-3 is currently unclear.…”

“…In human subjects with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and obesity, BBR effectively reduced body weight, body mass index (BMI), and waist 17 . In accordance with the anti-obesity effect, BBR inhibited the differentiation and proliferation of 3T3-L1 adipocytes, as indicated by the reduction of lipid accumulation, the down-regulation of adipogenic genes, and the inhibition of DNA synthesis 1,18–21 .…”

Function of berberine on porcine in vitro fertilization embryo development and differential expression analysis of microRNAs

“…Berberine (Ber) is an isoquinoline alkaloid compound extracted from Rhizoma Coptidis, which has a wide range of biological effects and can regulate miRNA levels (Wu et al, ). Our previous study found that adding Ber into embryo culture medium elevated the anti‐apoptotic gene miR‐21 in pre‐implantation mouse embryos (Zhang et al, ), significantly promoted the pregnancy rate and survival rate of a litter upon in vitro cultured blastocyst transfer (Gao, Fu, Chen, Mu, & Su, ), decreased the lipid droplet content in porcine oocytes, promoted oocyte maturation in vitro (Luo et al, ; Zhang et al, ), and increased the blastocyst rates of parthenogenetic activation embryos and in vitro fertilization (IVF) embryos, and increased the number of inner cell mass (ICM) and total cells in pig blastocysts, decreased the apoptosis index，improved the level of NO in culture environment, inhibited MDA production, and reduced the damage of free radical to embryos (Xu et al, ).…”

Bioactive Ingredients in Chinese Herbal Medicines That Target Non-coding RNAs: Promising New Choices for Disease Treatment

“…Interestingly, BBR also has protective effects against obesity, steatotic liver and insulin resistance. It inhibits cell viability, cell differentiation, and triglyceride content in a dose- and time-dependent manner, through marked induction of miR-27a and miR-27b; while miR-27a and miR-27b inhibitors can counteract this repressive function of BBR (Wu et al, 2016). Steatotic liver results from disordered lipid metabolism, where lncRNA MRAK052686, NRF2 (Yuan et al, 2015), and miR-373 (Li C. H. et al, 2018) are down-regulated.…”