An Integrative Multi-Omics Analysis Reveals MicroRNA-143 as a Potential Therapeutic to Attenuate Retinal Angiogenesis

Abstract

Retinal neovascularization is a severe complication of proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are master regulators of gene expression that play an important role in retinal neovascularization. In this study, we show that miR-143-3p is significantly downregulated in the retina of a rat model of oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR) by miRNA-sequencing. Intravitreal injection of synthetic miR-143 mimics significantly ameliorate retinal neovascularization in OIR rats. miR-143 is identified to be highly expressed in the neural retina particularly in the ganglion cell layer and retinal vasculature. In miR-143 treated cells, the functional evaluation showed a decrease in cell mig..