MicroRNA-765 influences arterial stiffness through modulating apelin expression

The present study aims to discover single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at the apelin gene (APLN) in relation to arterial stiffness, and to explore its molecular mechanisms. A two-step genetic association study was conducted using 799 and 937 subjects in the screening and validation data, respectively. Four tagging SNPs of APLN were tested. SNP rs3115757 was significantly associated with stiffness parameters (β, Ep and PWV) in women, but not in men. The function of rs3115757 was tagged by rs3115758 which is located in miR-765 binding site in the 3′ untranslated region of APLN. The reporter assay confirmed that different alleles of rs3115758 interfered with miR-765 binding and then modified APLN expression. Over-expression of miR-765 in endothelial cells decreased mRNA and protein levels of APLN, which further inhibited the phosphorylation of eNOS and ERK/Akt/AMPK signaling. Collectively, our data showed that rs3115758 accounts for the susceptibility of arterial stiffening through miR-765-induced APLN repression.