Co-expression Analysis Reveals Dysregulated miRNAs and miRNA-mRNA Interactions in the Development of Contrast-induced Acute Kidney Injury [miRNA]. Co-expression Analysis Reveals Dysregulated miRNAs and miRNA-mRNA Interactions in the Development of Contrast-induced Acute Kidney Injury [miRNA]

Purpose: The pathogenesis of contrast-induced acute kidney injury (CI-AKI) has not yet been clearly understood. miRNAs are important mediators which normally work by post-transcriptional degradation of target mRNAs. Emerging evidence indicated a number of differentially expressed miRNAs in CI-AKI following intravenous contrast medium injection. However, there exist differences in the pathological mechanisms and incidences of CI-AKI between intravenous and intra-arterial contrast administration. We aimed to investigate the critical roles of dysregulated miRNAs and the correlated mRNAs in the kidney injury following intra-arterial contrast exposure. Methods: Based on a reliable CI-AKI rat model, we sought to investigate the roles of miRNA-mRNA interactions in the kidney injury following intra-arterial contrast exposure using the Illumina Genome Analyzer IIx. Results: In the study, 36 differentially expressed mature miRNAs were identified ( fold change > 1.5 and p value 2.0 and p value < 0.05) were identified. Integrated analysis revealed 2037 putative miRNA-mRNA pairs with negative correlations. Of which, 6 differential miRNAs and 13 genes were selected for further quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction validation (n = 6 for each group), and a well correspondence between the 2 techniques was observed. Conclusions: In conclusion, our present study contributes to the first evidence of miRNA-mRNA regulations in the development of kidney injury following an intra-arterial contrast injection route. These novel findings provide insights into the underlying mechanisms of CI-AKI. Overall design: Three-month-old male Sprague-Dawley rats were used in this study. Kidney mRNA and miRNA profiles of CI-AKI rats and controls were generated by deep sequencing, in triplicate, using Illumina Illumina Genome Analyzer IIx.