MicroRNA-690 Regulates Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs) Differentiation into Insulin-producing Cells by Targeting Sox9

Background: The regulatory mechanism of insulin-producing cells (IPCs) differentiation from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in vitro is very important in the phylogenetics of pancreatic islets, the molecular pathogenesis of diabetes, and the acquisition of high-quality pancreatic β-cells derived from stem cells for cell therapy.

Methods: miPSCs were induced for IPCs differentiation. miRNA microarray assays were performed by using total RNA from our iPCs-derived IPCs containing undifferentiated iPSCs and iPSCs-derived IPCSs at day 4, day 14, and day 21 during step 3 to screen the differentially expressed miRNAs (DEmiRNAs) related to IPCs differentiation, and putative target genes of DEmiRNAs were predicted by bioinformatics analysis. miR-690 was selected for further research, and MPCs were transfected by miR-690-agomir to confirm whether it was involved in the regulation of IPCs differentiation in iPSCs. Quantitative Real-Time PCR (qRT-PCR), Western blotting, and immunostaining assays were performed to examine the pancreatic function of IPCs at mRNA and protein level respectively. Flow cytometry and ELISA were performed to detect differentiation efficiency and insulin content and secretion from iPSCs-derived IPCs in response to stimulation at different concentration of glucose. The targeting of the 3'-untranslated region of Sox9 by miR-690 was examined by luciferase assay.

Results: We found that miR-690 was expressed dynamically during IPCs differentiation according to the miRNA array results and that overexpression of miR-690 significantly impaired the maturation and insulinogenesis of IPCs derived from iPSCs both in vitro and in vivo. Bioinformatic prediction and mechanistic analysis revealed that miR-690 plays a pivotal role during the differentiation of IPCs by directly targeting the transcription factor sex-determining region Y (SRY)-box9. Furthermore, downstream experiments indicated that miR-690 is likely to act as an inactivated regulator of the Wnt signaling pathway in this process.

Conclusions: We discovered a previously unknown interaction between miR-690 and sox9 but also revealed a new regulatory signaling pathway of the miR-690/Sox9 axis during iPSCs-induced IPCs differentiation.