MiR-204-5p may Regulate Oxidative Stress in Myopia and Myopia-Related Retinopathy

Introduction: The mechanisms underlying myopia and myopia-related retinopathy remain not fully understood. We proposed to examine the function and underlying mechanisms of miR-204-5p in myopia development. Methods: The miR-204-5p expression level was assessed in the vitreous humor (VH) of a cohort consisting of 11 patients with high myopia (HM) and 16 control patients undergoing retinal surgery. The functional implications of miR-204-5p in ARPE-19 cells were assessed, encompassing cell aggressiveness. Thioredoxin-interacting protein (TXNIP) was found as a possible target of miR-204-5p through mRNA sequencing, and its interaction with miR-204-5p was confirmed employing luciferase assay and western blotting. Furthermore, the miR-204-5p function in regulating oxidative stress was examined by measuring reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation. Results: miR-204-5p was found to be significantly reduced in the VH of HM patients. Overexpression of miR-204-5p suppressed cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and apoptosis in ARPE-19 cells. The bioinformatics analysis demonstrated that miR-204-5p can modulate the genes associated with pathways relevant to myopia, including glycosaminoglycan (GAG) degradation, lysosome, and TGF-beta signaling pathway. The direct targeting of miR-204-5p on TXNIP has been confirmed through validation, and its downregulation mediated the miR-204-5p impacts on ARPE-19 cells. Moreover, miR-204-5p overexpression significantly reduced ROS accumulation by targeting TXNIP. Conclusion: Our findings revealed the possible contribution of the miR-204-5p/TXNIP axis in myopia development by regulating oxidative stress, which may provide new targets and novel therapeutic strategies to combat this prevalent and debilitating condition. Overall design: To investigate the possible target of miR-204-5p, we established ARPE-19 cell lines transfected with miR-204-5p or miR-NC. we then performed gene expression profiling analysis using data obtained from RNA-seq of miR-204-5p transfected ARPE-19 cells and miR-NC transfected ARPE-19 cells(containing 3 biological replications each group) comparative gene expression profiling analysis of RNA-seq data for miR-204-5p transfected ARPE-19 cells and miR-NC transfected ARPE-19 cells