Wu_2020_J.Cell.Mol.Med_24_3745

Idiopathic interstitial pulmonary fibrosis is a common diffuse interstitial lung disease and has poor prognosis. And one of the pathological features of it is persistent fibroblast activation. It was reported that microRNA-30a was down-regulated in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis patients. But whether miR-30a is involved in fibroblast activation and its specific mechanism is unclear. In this study, we aimed to investigate the role of miR-30a in fibroblast activation induced by TGF-beta1. We found miR-30a could targetedly suppress FAP-alpha expression. In MRC5 cells, miR-30a was not only involved in regulating the expression of FAP-alpha, col1a and alpha-SMA induced by TGF-beta1 but also had a role in cell proliferation with or without TGF-beta1 treatment via regulating FAP-alpha expression. Thus, the results indicated that miR-30a alleviated fibroblast activation by regulating the expression of FAP-alpha.