BIK is a novel pro-apoptotic target gene for miR-125b in human monocytes

Excerpt

The high numbers of activated cells in rheumatoid arthritic (RA) joints critically contribute to the persistence of chronic disease and have been associated with their resistance to undergo apoptosis [1]. Activity of pro- and anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 family members is constrained by transcriptional and/or post-transcriptional controls. As part of the post-transcriptional gene regulatory network machinery, micro(mi)RNAs represent an important class of endogenous, short, non-coding RNA that decreases gene expression by pairing to target transcripts and inducing gene silencing. Among miRNAs that have been assigned oncogenic and/or tumor suppressor-like functions, miR-125b is of particular interest. Among the dozen of genes that are identified so far as miR-125b targets, three are directly involved in apoptosis, all encoding for pro-apoptotic proteins: Bmf, BAK1 and p53 [2-4]. …