miR-203, fine-tunning neuroinflammation by juggling different components of NF‐κB signaling

BACKGROUND: miR-203 was first indicated in maintaining skin homeostasis and innate immunity. Aberrant expression of miR-203 was found associated with pathological progressions of immune disorders, cancers, as well as neurodegenerations. Recently, increasing data on miR-203 in regulating neuroinflammation and neuronal apoptosis has raised extensive concern about the biological function of this microRNA. METHODS: Mouse model with ectopic miR-203 expression in the hippocampus was constructed by stereotactic injection of lentiviral expression vector of pre-miR-203. Association of miR-203 and mRNA of Akirin2, as well as the competition for miR-203 targeting between Akirin2 3ʹUTR and another recently characterized miR-203 target, 14-3-3θ, was verified using Dual-Luciferase Reporter Gene Assay and western blot. Microglia activation and pro-inflammatory cytokines expression in the hippocampus of mice overexpressing miR-203 was evaluated using immunohistochemistry analysis and western blot. Neuronal cell death was monitored using anti-caspase 8 in immunohistochemistry as well as TUNEL assay. Cognition of mice was assessed with a behavior test battery consisting of nesting behavior test, Barnes maze and fear conditioning test. RESULTS: Akirin2, an activator of NF‐κB signaling, was identified as a direct target of miR-203. By also targeting 14-3-3θ, a negative regulator of NF‐κB signaling, miR-203 displayed an overall pro-inflammatory role both in vitro and in vivo. Promoted nuclear translocation of NF‐κB and increased expression of proinflammatory cytokines were observed in cultured BV2 cells transfected with miR-203 mimics. Microglia activation and upregulation of NF‐κB, IL-1β and IL-6 were observed in mouse hippocampus with overexpression of miR-203. In addition, promoted neuronal cell death in the hippocampus and impaired neuronal activities resulted in cognitive dysfunction of mice with ectopic miR-203 expression in the hippocampus. CONCLUSION: A pro-inflammatory and neurodisruptive role of miR-203 was addressed based on our data in this study. Given the identification of Akirin2 as a direct target of miR-203 and the competition with 14-3-3θ for miR-203 targeting, together with the findings of other signaling molecules in NF‐κB pathway as targets of miR-203, we proposed that miR-203 was a master modulator, fine-tunning neuroinflammation by juggling different components of NF‐κB signaling. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12974-022-02451-9.