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PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2024.1446554
This article is part of the Research Topic Restoring Barrier Function and Immunity: What Roles Can Traditional Medicines Play? View all 9 articles

MiRNAs: a new target for Chinese medicine to repair the intestinal barrier in the treatment of ulcerative colitis

Provisionally accepted
Dajuan Sun Dajuan Sun 1Zhongtao Zhang Zhongtao Zhang 2*Jingwei Xue Jingwei Xue 2*
  • 1 Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, Shandong Province, China
  • 2 he affiliated Taian City Central Hospital of Qingdao University, Taian,, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic nonspecific inflammatory bowel disease whose pathogenesis remains unclear. Dysfunction of the intestinal mucosal barrier is closely related to the pathogenesis of UC, which is characterised by damage to the colon epithelial barrier, disruption of immune homeostasis, and persistent inflammatory cell infiltration. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) exhibit specific or differential expression in both UC animal models and patients , implicating their involvement in the pathogenesis of UC. In recent years there has been progress in using Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) to regulate miRNA expression for repairing the intestinal mucosal barrier in UC, as demonstrated in animal and cell experiments. However, it has not been applied in a clinical setting and its underlying molecular mechanisms require further investigation. Therefore, this study systematically described the role of miRNAs in UC-induced intestinal barrier damage and the application of TCM to repair this intestinal barrier by regulating miRNA expression, offering new therapeutic targets for UC treatment.

    Keywords: ulcerative colitis, Intestinal Mucosal Barrier, MicroRNAs, mechanism of action, Traditional Chinese Medicine

    Received: 10 Jun 2024; Accepted: 29 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Sun, Zhang and Xue. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Zhongtao Zhang, he affiliated Taian City Central Hospital of Qingdao University, Taian,, China
    Jingwei Xue, he affiliated Taian City Central Hospital of Qingdao University, Taian,, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.