International Journal of Molecular Sciences (Feb 2023)

Skeletal Muscle-Derived Exosomal miR-146a-5p Inhibits Adipogenesis by Mediating Muscle-Fat Axis and Targeting GDF5-PPARγ Signaling

  • Mengran Qin,
  • Lipeng Xing,
  • Jiahan Wu,
  • Shulei Wen,
  • Junyi Luo,
  • Ting Chen,
  • Yaotian Fan,
  • Jiahao Zhu,
  • Lekai Yang,
  • Jie Liu,
  • Jiali Xiong,
  • Xingping Chen,
  • Canjun Zhu,
  • Songbo Wang,
  • Lina Wang,
  • Gang Shu,
  • Qingyan Jiang,
  • Yongliang Zhang,
  • Jiajie Sun,
  • Qianyun Xi

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24054561
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 24, no. 5
p. 4561

Abstract

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Skeletal muscle-fat interaction is essential for maintaining organismal energy homeostasis and managing obesity by secreting cytokines and exosomes, but the role of the latter as a new mediator in inter-tissue communication remains unclear. Recently, we discovered that miR-146a-5p was mainly enriched in skeletal muscle-derived exosomes (SKM-Exos), 50-fold higher than in fat exosomes. Here, we investigated the role of skeletal muscle-derived exosomes regulating lipid metabolism in adipose tissue by delivering miR-146a-5p. The results showed that skeletal muscle cell-derived exosomes significantly inhibited the differentiation of preadipocytes and their adipogenesis. When the skeletal muscle-derived exosomes co-treated adipocytes with miR-146a-5p inhibitor, this inhibition was reversed. Additionally, skeletal muscle-specific knockout miR-146a-5p (mKO) mice significantly increased body weight gain and decreased oxidative metabolism. On the other hand, the internalization of this miRNA into the mKO mice by injecting skeletal muscle-derived exosomes from the Flox mice (Flox-Exos) resulted in significant phenotypic reversion, including down-regulation of genes and proteins involved in adipogenesis. Mechanistically, miR-146a-5p has also been demonstrated to function as a negative regulator of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) signaling by directly targeting growth and differentiation factor 5 (GDF5) gene to mediate adipogenesis and fatty acid absorption. Taken together, these data provide new insights into the role of miR-146a-5p as a novel myokine involved in the regulation of adipogenesis and obesity via mediating the skeletal muscle-fat signaling axis, which may serve as a target for the development of therapies against metabolic diseases, such as obesity.

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