Placenta-Specific miR-125b Overexpression Leads to Increased Rates of Pregnancy Loss in Mice

• Published in: International journal of molecular sciences 2022-01, Vol.23 (2), p.943
• Main Authors: Sun, Fen, Cai, Hui, Tan, Lunbo, Qin, Dezhe, Zhang, Jian, Hua, Jinlian, Fan, Xiujun, Peng, Sha
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abortion; Abortion, Spontaneous - genetics; Angiogenesis; Animals; Blood vessels; Cancer; Case-Control Studies; Cell growth; Cell Line; Cell lines; Disease Models, Animal; Embryo transfer; Embryos; Endometrium; Female; HTR8 cells; Humans; Implantation; JEG3 cells; Mice; MicroRNAs - genetics; Miscarriage; Organ Specificity; Overexpression; Pathogenesis; Patients; Placenta; Placenta - chemistry; Pregnancy; Pregnancy complications; pregnancy loss; Trophoblasts; Up-Regulation; Vascular endothelial growth factor; VEGF
• ISSN: 1422-0067; 1661-6596; 1422-0067
• DOI: 10.3390/ijms23020943

Pregnancy loss (PL) is one of the common complications that women can experience during pregnancy, with an occurrence rate of 1 to 5%. The potential causes of pregnancy loss are unclear, with no effective treatment modalities being available. It has been previously reported that the level of miR-125b was significantly increased in placentas of PL patients. However, the role of miR-125b in the development of PL still remains unknown. In the current study, an miR-125b placenta-specific over-expression model was constructed by lentiviral transfecting zona-free mouse embryos followed by embryo transfer. On gestation day 15, it was observed that the placenta was significantly smaller in the miR-125b placenta-specific overexpression group than the control group. Additionally, the abortion rate of the miR-125b placenta-specific overexpression group was markedly higher than in the control group. The blood vessel diameter was larger in the miR-125b-overexpressing specific placenta. In addition, miR-125b-overexpressing HTR8 and JEG3 cell lines were also generated to analyze the migration and invasion ability of trophoblasts. The results showed that miR-125b overexpression significantly suppressed the migration and invasion ability of HTR8 and JEG3 cells. Overall, our results demonstrated that miR-125b can affect embryo implantation through modulating placenta angiogenesis and trophoblast cell invasion capacity that can lead to PL.