Allele-specific targeting of hsa-miR-657 to human IGF2R creates a potential mechanism underlying the association of ACAA-insertion/deletion polymorphism with type 2 diabetes

Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2008 Sep 12;374(1):101-5. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2008.06.102. Epub 2008 Jul 9.

Abstract

The biological mechanism of a recent discovered association of type 2 diabetes with the ACAA-insertion/deletion polymorphism at the 3'UTR of the IGF2R gene has remained unclear. A very recently emerging novel polymorphic control layer by microRNAs (miRNAs) makes it possible to elucidate this issue. In this study, a prediction by web tools MicroInspector and miRanda demonstrated that DNA sequence polymorphism (DSPs) ACAA-insertion/deletion in IGF2R 3'UTR is located within the hsa-miR-657 and hsa-miR-453 binding sites. And luciferase reporter assay revealed that hsa-miR-657 acts directly at the 3'UTR of the IGF2R. Furthermore, ACAA-deletion exerted a further repression compared with ACAA-insertion, indicating that hsa-miR-657 regulates IGF2R gene expression in a polymorphic control manner. Importantly, we also demonstrated that hsa-miR-657 can translationally regulate the IGF2R expression levels in Hep G2 cells. Thus, our findings testify the possibility that the ACAA-insertion/deletion polymorphism may result in the change of IGF2R expression levels at least in part by hsa-miR-657-mediated regulation, contributing to the elucidation for the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes and raise the possibility that miRNAs or in combination with functional DNA sequence polymorphism may be valuable in the treatment of human type 2 diabetes.

MeSH terms

  • 3' Untranslated Regions / genetics
  • 3' Untranslated Regions / metabolism
  • Alleles
  • Binding Sites / genetics
  • Cell Line
  • Computational Biology
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / genetics*
  • Gene Expression Regulation*
  • Humans
  • MicroRNAs / metabolism*
  • Mutagenesis, Insertional
  • Polymorphism, Genetic*
  • Receptor, IGF Type 2 / antagonists & inhibitors
  • Receptor, IGF Type 2 / genetics*
  • Sequence Deletion

Substances

  • 3' Untranslated Regions
  • MicroRNAs
  • Receptor, IGF Type 2