MicroRNA-152 regulates DNA methyltransferase 1 and is involved in the development and lactation of mammary glands in dairy cows
Authors: Jie Wang
Qingzhang Li
Zhuoran Wang
Xuejun Gao
Yanjie Bian
Dan Li
Chunmei Wang
Journal: PLoS ONE (2014)
Discipline: Multidisciplinary
Keywords: MicroRNAs; miR-152; gene expression; lactation; mammary glands
Affiliations: Key Laboratory of Dairy Science of Education Ministry, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China.

Abstract:  MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding, endogenous regulatory RNAs that function by controlling gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. Using small RNA sequencing and qRT-PCR techniques, we found that the expression of miR-152 was significantly increased during lactation in the mammary glands of dairy cows producing high quality milk compared with that in cows producing low quality milk. Furthermore, DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1), which is a target of miR-152, was inversely correlated with the expression levels of miR-152 in the mammary glands of dairy cows. Dairy cow mammary epithelial cells (DCMECs) were used as in vitro cell models to study the function of miR-152. The forced expression of miR-152 in DCMECs resulted in a marked reduction of DNMT1 at both mRNA and protein levels. This in turn led to a decrease in global DNA methylation and increased the expression of two lactation-related genes, serine/threonine protein kinase Akt (Akt) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (Pparγ). In contrast, inhibition of miR-152 showed the opposite results. By using an electronic Coulter counter (CASY-TT) and flow cytometer, we discovered that miR-152 enhanced the viability and multiplication capacity of DCMECs. In conclusion, miR-152 plays an important role in the development and lactation processes in the mammary glands of dairy cows. Our data provide insights into dairy cow mammary gland development and lactation. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 Copy pasted from https: www.nature.com articles s41586-021-03656-3 :  Retraction Note. Published: 07 July 2021. Retraction Note of  Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history . Following the publication of this Letter, Beheim and colleagues submitted a Matters Arising in which they argued that our primary results were called into question by our treatment of missing data1. In our research, we attempted to test the u2018big godsu2019 hypothesis even-handedly using the best available evidence, and we made our data and code available during the review process and after publication, in line with best practice in open science. Nevertheless, we accept that we should have labelled moralizing gods as u2018absentu2019 or u2018inferred absentu2019 rather than u2018unknownu2019 in portions of our dataset before the dates of the first appearance, rather than converting u2018NAsu2019 to zeros during the phase of analysis. Since this Letter was published, we have thoroughly refined our data and analyses, and have found that our original conclusions are still strongly supported2,3. However, the differences between our revised analyses and the original Letter are substantial enough to warrant a Retraction of the original Letter. We have submitted the enhanced analyses for peer review and potential publication in another journal. We encourage the community to refer to these new papers in future instead of this now-retracted Letter. We apologize to the scientific community for the unintended confusion. See also https: retractionwatch.com 2021 07 07 critique-topples-nature-paper-on-belief-in-gods ,