MiR-378a suppresses tenogenic differentiation and tendon repair by targeting at TGF-β2

BACKGROUND: Tendons are a crucial component of the musculoskeletal system and responsible for transmission forces derived from muscle to bone. Patients with tendon injuries are often observed with decreased collagen production and matrix degeneration, and healing of tendon injuries remains a challenge as a result of limited understanding of tendon biology. Recent studies highlight the contribution of miR-378a on the regulation gene expression during tendon differentiation. METHODS: We examined the tendon microstructure and tendon repair with using miR-378a knock-in transgenic mice, and the tendon-derived stem cells were also isolated from transgenic mice to study their tenogenic differentiation ability. Meanwhile, the expression levels of tenogenic markers were also examined in mouse tendon-derived stem cells transfected with miR-378a mimics during tenogenic differentiation. With using online prediction software and luciferase reporter assay, the binding target of miR-378a was also studied. RESULTS: Our results indicated miR-378a impairs tenogenic differentiation and tendon repair by inhibition collagen and extracellular matrix production both in vitro and in vivo. We also demonstrated that miR-378a exert its inhibitory role during tenogenic differentiation through binding at TGFβ2 by luciferase reporter assay and western blot. CONCLUSIONS: Our investigation suggests that miR-378a could be considered as a new potential biomarker for tendon injury diagnosis or drug target for a possible therapeutic approach in future clinical practice. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13287-019-1216-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.