Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Feb 8, 2017; 9(4): 191-208
Published online Feb 8, 2017. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v9.i4.191
Regulation of hepatic microRNA expression by hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 alpha
Hong Lu, Xiaohong Lei, Jerry Liu, Curtis Klaassen
Hong Lu, Xiaohong Lei, Department of Pharmacology, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY 13210, United States
Jerry Liu, Curtis Klaassen, Department of Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66160, United States
Author contributions: Lu H wrote the paper; Lu H, Lei X and Liu J performed the experiments and analyzed the data; Lu H and Klaassen C conceived and designed the experiments.
Supported by NIH grant ES019487 in part.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All animal procedures in the study were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of Kansas Medical Center. The animal protocol was designed to minimize the pain or distress to the mice. Agematched young-adult HNF4α Liv-KO mice and their wild-type control littermates were fed rodent chow (#8064, Teklad; Harlan, Indianapolis, IN). Mice were housed at an ambient temperature of 22 °C with alternating 12-h light/dark cycles and allowed water and feed ad libitum.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Hong Lu, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology, SUNY Upstate Medical University, 750 E Adams ST, Syracuse, NY 13210, United States. luh@upstate.edu
Telephone: +1-315-4647978 Fax: +1-315-4648008
Received: July 30, 2016
Peer-review started: August 2, 2016
First decision: September 8, 2016
Revised: October 2, 2016
Accepted: December 1, 2016
Article in press: December 2, 2016
Published online: February 8, 2017
Processing time: 191 Days and 3.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 alpha (HNF4α) is a liver-enriched master regulator of liver development and function. HNF4α plays a key role in regulating hepatic transcriptome and epigenome. However, little was known about the role of HNF4α in regulating hepatic expression of microRNAs, essential modulators of the transcriptome and epigenome. Results from this study uncover species differences and similarities between humans and mice in the role of HNF4α in regulating hepatic expression of certain important microRNAs. Such novel knowledge will help understand the role of HNF4α in post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression and maintenance of the normal epigenome and physiology in mouse and human liver.