Research Paper Volume 14, Issue 5 pp 2418—2431
miRNA-29a inhibits atherosclerotic plaque formation by mediating macrophage autophagy via PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway
Figure 4. MiR-29a targets PIK3CA and inhibits atherosclerotic plaque formation in vivo. (A) MiR-29a binds to the PIK3CA gene. (B) The luciferase activity of pmirGLO reporter gene is reduced after co-transfection with pmirGLO-PI3K-3'-UTR-WT and hsa-miR-29a mimic, but it shows no statistically significant difference after co-transfection with pmirGLO-PI3K-3'-UTR-MUT and hsa-miR-29a mimic. (C) MOVAT staining and immunohistochemical staining of MAC-3 and α-SMA are performed to investigate the atherosclerotic lesion area in mice. (D) TEM is adopted to investigate the macrophage morphological changes. Data are expressed as the mean ± SD. P < 0.05.