Integrative analysis of the transcriptome and targetome identifies the regulatory network of miR-16: an inhibitory role against the activation of hepatic stellate cells.

Hepatic stellate cell (HSC) activation is the critical event of liver fibrosis. Abnormality of miR-16 expression induces their activation. However, the action model of miR-16 remains to be elucidated because of its multiple-targeted manner. Here, we report that miR-16 restoration exerted a wide-range impact on transcriptome (2,082 differentially expressed transcripts) of activated HSCs. Integrative analysis of both targetome (1,195 targets) and transcriptome uncovered the miR-16 regulatory network based upon bio-molecular interaction databases (BIND, BioGrid, Tranfac, and KEGG), cross database searching with iterative algorithm, Dijkstra's algorithm with greedy method, etc. Eight targets in the targetome (Map2k1, Bmpr1b, Nf1, Pik3r3, Ppp2r1a, Prkca, Smad2, and Sos2) served as key regulatory network nodes that mediate miR-16 action. A set of TFs (Sp1, Jun, Crebl, Arnt, Fos, and Nf1) was recognized to be the functional layer of key nodes, which mapped the signal of miR-16 to transcriptome. In result, the comprehensive action of miR-16 abrogated transcriptomic characteristics that determined the phenotypes of activated HSCs, including active proliferation, ECM deposition, and apoptosis resistance. Therefore, a multi-layer regulatory network based upon the integration of targetome and transcriptome may underlie the global action of miR-16, which suggesting it plays an inhibitory role in HSC activation.