miR-1968-5p is involved in the pathogenesis of lupus nephritis of NZBWF1 mice by targeting csf1.

OBJECTIVE Lupus nephritis is one of the most common and severe systemic lupus erythematosus complications. However, the pathogenesis of lupus nephritis is still poorly understood. Increasing evidence has shown that microRNAs (miRNAs) are extensively involved in the pathophysiology of autoimmune diseases. NZBWF1 is the classical mouse model of lupus nephritis. The present study aimed to investigate the expression profiling of mRNA and miRNAs of NZBWF1 mice with lupus nephritis using microarray, and explored the potential molecular mechanism of miRNA. METHODS miRNA and mRNA microarrays were performed to identify miRNA and mRNA expression changes between pre-diseased (8-week-old) NZBWF1 mice and diseased NZBWF1 mice with lupus nephritis (28-week-old). Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) validated these results. The target of miRNA was confirmed through a dual-luciferase reporter and stimulated mesangial cells experiment. RESULTS The combined miRNA and mRNA analysis identified 43 differentially expressed miRNAs and 1796 differentially expressed mRNAs between pre-disease (8-week-old) (n = 4) and diseased (28-week-old) NZBWF1 mice. We found that miR-1968-5p was significantly decreased, and csf1 mRNA was significantly increased in lupus nephritis mouse and verified by RT-PCR. csf1 has been demonstrated to play important roles in SLE. Bioinformatics analysis predicted that the csf1 was a potential target gene of miR-1968-5p. A dual-luciferase reporter assay confirmed the target binding. In cell experiments, overexpression or knockdown of miR resulted in a decrease or increase of csf1 expression, respectively. CONCLUSION These results suggest that miR-1968-5p may be involved in the pathogenesis of lupus nephritis of NZBWF1 mice by targeting csf1.