MicroRNA-27a regulates lipid metabolism and inhibits hepatitis C virus replication in human hepatoma cells

Gene expression profiling was carried out in Huh-7.5 cells in which miR-27a was over- or under-expressed. Transfection of cells with pre-miR-27a and pre-miR-control, or anti-miR-27a and anti-miR-control enabled down- and up-regulated genes to be determined, respectively. Replication and infectivity of the lipotrophic hepatitis C virus (HCV) is regulated by cellular lipid status. Among differentially expressed micro (mi)RNAs, we found that miR-27a was preferentially expressed in HCV-infected compared with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-infected liver. Gene expression profiling of Huh-7.5 cells showed that miR-27a regulates lipid metabolism by targeting the lipid synthetic transcriptional factor, RXRα, and the lipid transporter, ABCA1 Carrying out a Target Scan (Release 5.2) of miR-27a predicted 921 candidate target genes, and functional gene ontology enrichment analysis of these genes by MetaCore (Thomson Reuters, NY) showed that miR-27a could target the signaling pathways of cytoskeleton remodeling and lipid metabolism . To examine whether these signaling pathways were regulated by miR-27a, gene expression profiling was carried out in Huh-7.5 cells in which miR-27a was over- or under-expressed. Transfection of cells with pre-miR-27a and pre-miR-control, or anti-miR-27a and anti-miR-control enabled down- and up-regulated genes to be determined, respectively. Huh-7.5 cells with miR-27a over- or under-expressed