Talk about micromanaging! Role of microRNAs in intestinal barrier function

Defective intestinal tight-junction (TJ) barrier has been implicated in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), and other inflammatory conditions of the gut. The role of microRNAs (miRNA’s or miR’s) has also been demonstrated in the last two decades in the pathogenesis of IBD and in the regulation of intestinal TJ barrier function. MiRNAs are noncoding regulators of gene expression at the posttranscription level that have an essential role in targeting transcripts encoding proteins of intestinal TJs and their regulators. Many miRNAs have been reported to regulate or deregulate the TJ proteins responsible for the intestinal barrier integrity and intestinal permeability. Many of those miRNAs have been reported to have essential roles in the pathogenesis of IBD. In this mini-review, we summarize the results of studies in the last three years that implicate miRNAs in the defective TJ barrier in relation to IBD. The therapeutic potential of using specific miRNAs to target the intestinal TJ barrier might be of great insight for IBD therapy.