MicroRNAs, a class of small and non-encoding RNAs that transcriptionally or post-transcriptionally modulate the expression of their target genes, has been implicated as critical regulatory molecules in many cardiovascular diseases, including ischemia/reperfusion induced cardiac injury. Here, we report microRNA-145, a tumor suppressor miRNA, can protect cardiomyocytes from hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-induced apoptosis through targeting the mitochondrial pathway. Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) demonstrated that the expression of miR-145 in either ischemia/reperfused mice myocardial tissues or H2O2-treated neonatal rat ventricle myocytes (NRVMs) was markedly down-regulated. Over-expression of miR-145 significantly inhibited the H2O2-induced cellular apoptosis, ROS production, mitochondrial structure disruption as well as the activation of key signaling proteins in mitochondrial apoptotic pathway. These protective effects of miR-145 were abrogated by over-expression of Bnip3, an initiation factor of the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway in cardiomyocytes. Finally, we utilized both luciferase reporter assay and western blot analysis to identify Bnip3 as a direct target of miR-145. Our results suggest miR-145 plays an important role in regulating mitochondrial apoptotic pathway in heart challenged with oxidative stress. MiR-145 may represent a potential therapeutic target for treatment of oxidative stress-associated cardiovascular diseases, such as myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury.

Asherman's syndrome (AS) is a common disease that presents endometrial regeneration disorder. However, little is known about its molecular features of this aregenerative endometrium in AS and how to reconstruct the functioning endometrium for the patients with AS. Here, we report that ΔNp63 is significantly upregulated in residual epithelial cells of the impaired endometrium in AS; the upregulated-ΔNp63 induces endometrial quiescence and alteration of stemness. Importantly, we demonstrate that engrafting high density of autologous bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMNCs) loaded in collagen scaffold onto the uterine lining of patients with AS downregulates ΔNp63 expression, reverses ΔNp63-induced pathological changes, normalizes the stemness alterations and restores endometrial regeneration. Finally, five patients achieved successful pregnancies and live births. Therefore, we conclude that ΔNp63 is a crucial therapeutic target for AS. This novel treatment significantly improves the outcome for the patients with severe AS.Asherman's syndrome, ΔNp63, quiescence, endometrial regeneration, bone marrow stem cell based therapy Citation:

MicroRNAs are involved in the regulation of various cellular processes, including cell apoptosis and autophagy. Expression of microRNA-99a (miR-99a) is reduced in apoptotic neonatal mice ventricular myocytes (NMVMs) subjected to hypoxia. We hypothesize that miR-99a might restore cardiac function after myocardial infarction (MI) by up-regulation of myocyte autophagy and apoptosis. We observed down-regulated miR-99a expression in NMVMs exposed to hypoxia using TaqMan quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis (RT-PCR). We also observed that miR-99a overexpression decreased hypoxia-mediated apoptosis in cultured NMVMs. To investigate whether overexpression of miR-99a in vivo could improve cardiac function in ischaemic heart, adult C57/BL6 mice undergoing MI were randomized into two groups and were intra-myocardially injected with lenti-99a-green fluorescent protein (GFP) or lenti-GFP (control). Four weeks after MI, lenti-99a-GFP group showed significant improvement in both left ventricular (LV) function and survival ratio, as compared to the lenti-GFP group. Histological analysis, western blotting analysis and electron microscopy revealed decreased cellular apoptosis and increased autophagy in cardiomyocytes of lenti-99a-GFP group. Furthermore, western blotting analysis showed inhibited mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) expression in the border zones of hearts in miR-99a-treated group. Our results demonstrate that miR-99a overexpression improves both cardiac function and survival ratio in a murine model of MI by preventing cell apoptosis and increasing autophagy via an mTOR/P70/S6K signalling pathway. These findings suggest that miR-99a plays a cardioprotective role in post-infarction LV remodelling and increased expression of miR-99a may have a therapeutic potential in ischaemic heart disease.

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The tunica adventitia ensheathes arteries and veins and contains presumptive mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) involved in vascular remodeling. We show here that a subset of human adventitial cells express the CD10/CALLA cell surface metalloprotease.Both CD10 + and CD10 − adventitial cells displayed phenotypic features of MSCs when expanded in culture. However, CD10 + adventitial cells exhibited higher proliferation, clonogenic and osteogenic potentials in comparison to their CD10 − counterparts. CD10 + adventitial cells increased expression of the cell cycle protein CCND2 via ERK1/2 signaling and osteoblastogenic gene expression via NF-κB signaling.CD10 expression was upregulated in adventitial cells through sonic hedgehogmediated GLI1 signaling. These results suggest that CD10, which marks rapidly dividing cells in other normal and malignant cell lineages, plays a role in perivascular MSC function and cell fate specification. These findings also point to a role for CD10 + perivascular cells in vascular remodeling and calcification.