title: MicroRNA-223-3p suppresses leukemia inhibitory factor expression and pinopodes formation during embryo implantation in mice.
abstract: MicroRNA (miRNA) regulates gene expression in a post-transcriptional manner, which hybridizes the target mRNAs with complementary sequence and subsequently leads to translation repression or mRNA degradation. Online sequence alignment showed that there is a putative binding site of miR-223-3p on the 3'UTR of LIF, which is considered to be an important marker of endometrial receptivity. Thus, we hypothesized that miR-223-3p may affect embryo implantation by suppressing LIF expression. In this study, we found that miR-223-3p and LIF protein was inversely expressed in the endometrium of mice during implantation window. Then we proved that miR-223-3p directly binds to LIF 3'UTR with luciferase reporter assay and supresses the expression of LIF. To investigate whether miR-233-3p affects embryo implantation, miR-223-3p agonist was injected into the uteri of pregnant mice. The results demonstrated the suppressing effect of miR-223-3p on embryo implantation. Furthermore, over-expression of miR-223-3p was found to compromise pinopodes formation in the endometrium of mice. Taken all together, our findings revealed that miR-223-3p suppresses pinopodes formation and LIF protein expression, which may lead to diminished embryo implantation.
authors.affiliation: Reproductive Medicine Center, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medicine College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Jiefang Avenue 1095#, Wuhan 430030, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xiyuan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: Reproductive Medicine Center, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medicine College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Jiefang Avenue 1095#, Wuhan 430030, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Cong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sui
authors.affiliation: Reproductive Medicine Center, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medicine College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Jiefang Avenue 1095#, Wuhan 430030, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Reproductive Medicine Center, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medicine College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Jiefang Avenue 1095#, Wuhan 430030, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Lan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Reproductive Medicine Center, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medicine College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Jiefang Avenue 1095#, Wuhan 430030, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Reproductive Medicine Center, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medicine College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Jiefang Avenue 1095#, Wuhan 430030, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Ting
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Xiong
authors.affiliation: Reproductive Medicine Center, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medicine College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Jiefang Avenue 1095#, Wuhan 430030, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Reproductive Medicine Center, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medicine College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Jiefang Avenue 1095#, Wuhan 430030, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Hanwang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
keywords: LIF; MiR-223-3p; embryo implantation; pinopodes