Human microRNA-153-3p targets specific neuronal genes and is associated with the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimers disease (AD) is a progressive degenerative disease characterized by a significant loss of neurons and synapses in cognitive brain regions and is the leading cause of dementia worldwide. AD pathology comprises extracellular amyloid plaques and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles. However, the triggers of this pathology are still poorly understood. Repressor element 1-silencing transcription/neuron-restrictive silencer factor (REST/NRSF), a transcription repressor of neuronal genes, is dysregulated during AD pathogenesis. How REST is dysregulated is still poorly understood, especially at the post-transcriptional level. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a group of short non-coding RNAs, typically regulate protein expression by interacting with target mRNA transcript 3-untranslated region (UTR) and play essential roles in AD pathogenesis. Herein, we demonstrate that miR-153-3p reduces REST 3-UTR activities, mRNA, and protein levels in human cell lines, along with downregulating amyloid β precursor protein (APP) and α-synuclein (SNCA). We determine by mutational analyses that miR-153-3p interacts with specific targets via the seed sequence present within the respective mRNA 3-UTR. We show that miR-153-3p treatment alters the expression of these specific proteins in human neuronally differentiated cells and human induced pluripotent stem cells and that miR-153-3p is itself dysregulated in AD. We further find that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within 5kb of the MIR153-1 and MIR153-2 genes are associated with AD-related endophenotypes. Elevation of miR-153-3p is associated with reduced AD probability, while elevated REST may associate with a greater AD probability. Our work suggests that a supplement of miR-153-3p would reduce levels of toxic protein aggregates by reducing APP, SNCA, and REST expression, all pointing towards a therapeutic and biomarker potential of miR-153-3p in AD and related dementias.