Integrated analysis of miRNA and mRNA expression profiles in diabetic mouse kidney treated to Korean Red Ginseng

Abstract

Background Diabetes mellitus (DM) and its complications, including diabetic nephropathy, are rapidly increasing public health concerns. Korean Red Ginseng (KRG) is a popular herbal medicine that has many biological effects. The current literature demonstrates that KRG induced changes to the transcriptome in diabetic nephropathy mouse model are limited. Thus, we designed experiments to confirm whether changes of genes and miRNAs expression patterns in the renal cells of mice with DM, and then whether these changes are reversed by KRG. Objective This study aims to whether miRNAs and mRNAs expression and their relationships were contributed in the renal tissues of mice with streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes. Results We determined that the expression levels of 46 miRNAs and 827 mRNAs expression were changed in KRG-treated DM renal cells compared to DM renal cells. In addition, we found that mRNAs expression shows anti-correlation with miRNAs expression and further validated their biological processes and signaling pathways by Gene Ontology (GO). Conclusion Our data suggest that KRG may regulate miRNA and gene expression in a way that relieves diabetic nephropathy in mice.