miR-27a Targeting Regulates the Proliferation and Apoptosis of Sheep Hair Follicle Stem Cells.

Micro RNAs are regulatory factors in tissue development, organ formation, cell growth, apoptosis and other biological processes. In particular, several miRNAs are related to the development of hair follicles. Here, we investigated the effect of the targeting of by miR-27a on the AKT/MTOR pathway and on the proliferation and apoptosis of hair follicle stem cells (HFSCs) in sheep. Knockdown of the expression of was found to significantly inhibit the proliferation and promote the apoptosis of HFSCs. Similarly, a miR-27a mimic significantly inhibited the proliferation and promoted the apoptosis of HFSCs. The miR-27a mimic was also shown to significantly inhibit the expression of , AKT, and MTOR and the phosphorylation of AKT and MTOR, while a miR-27a inhibitor increased the expression of these genes. The presence of an miR-27a binding site in the 3' UTR of was identified by a bioinformatics analysis, and the interaction was verified with a dual-luciferase reporter assay. The expression of mRNA and protein was negatively correlated with the presence of miR-27a, which suggests that this interaction may be involved in the biological impacts on proliferation and apoptosis. Thus, this study demonstrates that miR-27a plays a potential role in the proliferation and apoptosis of sheep hair follicle stem cells by targeting , which can be used to design new methods to improve sheep wool.