Papers of the Week

Neuropathic pain, which results from impairment of the somatosensory system, has affected about 8% population around the world and leads to considerable burdens for patients and world health care system. However, its underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. In this study, we hypothesized that miR-24-3p was involved in the progression of neuropathic pain in CCI rat models. By measuring miR-24-3p expression in CCI rats, we found that miR-24-3p expression was increased in CCI rats, suggesting miR-24-3p might participate in neuropathic pain progression. Next, by conducting a serial in vitro and vivo experiments, we found that miR-24-3p regulated the Wnt5a/β-Catenin Signaling levels to promote neuropathic pain progression via targeting LPAR3 in CCI rats. Furthermore, we explored the upstream regulator of miR-24-3p by conducting bioinformatics analysis, we found that circular RNA cZRANB1 might sponge to miR-24-3p. Then we applied biotinylated RNA pull-down and luciferase reporter assays to assess the association between cZRANB1 and miR-24-3p. It was found that cZRANB1 mediated LPAR3 expression via sponging miR-24-3p. Collectively, our study suggests that cZRNAB1 regulated Wnt5a/β-Catenin Signaling expression via miR-24-3p/LPAR3 axis in CCI rat models.