MicroRNAs target gene and signaling pathway by bioinformatics analysis in the cardiac hypertrophy

Cardiac hypertrophy is a physiological adaptive response of the heart to diverse pathophysiological stimuli. Initially, it may be adaptive to normalize wall stress and to preserve contractile performance. This adaptive process may gradually progress to dilated cardiomyopathy, fibrotic diseases, arrhythmia, heart failure and even sudden death. Although various molecular pathways responsible for the coordinated control of the hypertrophic program, little is known about their underlying molecular mechanisms. Very recently, increasing evidence showed that miRNAs are key modulators of both cardiovascular development and function, which govern the process of cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) act in a complex functional network in which each single miRNAs might control thousands of distinct target genes, and each single protein-coding gene can be regulated by many different miRNAs. Identifying the roles of miRNAs, their target genes and signaling pathways in cardiac hypertrophy by bioinformatic analysis will provide more insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying this disease process. Currently, bioinformatics resource such as GO and KEGG was applied to describe the miRNAs target genes function and identify the mRNA interaction networks that are responsible for various cellular processes. It provides a useful approach to observe the function of microRNA in physiological and pathological conditions. In this review, we will give a discussion on the dysregulation of specific miRNAs in cardiac hypertrophy and signaling pathways linking the hypertrophy-regulating miRNAs to the pathological process of cardiac hypertrophy. Finally, we place special emphasis on the essential role of bioinformatics analysis to predict the target genes and miRNAs gene networks. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.