Cardiology Letters 2017, 26(5):299-302

MicroRNA - Information about myocardial damage or biomarker of heart failure?

Valášková Z¹, Mladosievičová B¹, Maruščáková L², Hulín I¹

¹ Ústav patologickej fyziológie LFUK v Bratislave

² Imunologického ústav LF UK v Bratislave, Slovenská republika

Heart failure (HF) is a complex syndrome. An adapative process for the maintenance of cardiac output is associated with the cardiomyocytes hypertrophy, cardiomyocytes apoptosis and myocardial fibrosis. The main problem is the decrease of contractile function and the cardiac remodeling. The high heterogeneity of risk factors is probably the cause of that, at this time, it is not possible to clinically exactly define the signalization profile of the failing heart. It is not clear which changes are the cause and which are the consequence of HF. The subcellular changes raised mainly in the progression of HF. Molecular and cellular mechanisms are accompanied with the activation of embryo-fetal gene program. In heart, there have been detected more than 200 types of microRNA (miRNA), that are important gene expression regulators throughout the cardiac development and they are directly involved in the initiation and the progress of pathological states. MiRNA are expressed by cardiomyocytes, fibroblasts, endothelial cells and vascular smooth muscle cells. These molecules control nearly all aspects of the cardiovascular biology. They have characteristics of an ideal biomarkers that give information about cardiac damage. Up to now many studies have found the changes at the level of miRNA in relation to the specific processes of cardiac remodeling. The review is devoted to the facts from the research area of miRNA in the pathogenesis of HF and to the evaluation of miRNA as a biomarker of HF.

Keywords: myocardial fibrosis; microRNA; myocardial remodeling; heart failure

Published: May 1, 2017  Show citation