{"doi":"10.3390/ijms241914564","title":"Dynamic Alterations to Hepatic MicroRNA-29a in Response to Long-Term High-Fat Diet and EtOH Feeding","abstract":"MicroRNA-29a (miR-29a) is a well characterized fibro-inflammatory molecule and its aberrant expression is linked to a variety of pathological liver conditions. The long-term effects of a high-fat diet (HFD) in combination with different levels of EtOH consumption on miR-29a expression and liver pathobiology are unknown. Mice at 8 weeks of age were divided into five groups (calorie-matched diet plus water (CMD) as a control group, HFD plus water (HFD) as a liver disease group, HFD plus 2% EtOH (HFD + 2% E), HFD + 10% E, and HFD + 20% E as intervention groups) and fed for 4, 13, 26, or 39 weeks. At each time point, analyses were performed for liver weight/body weight (BW) ratio, AST/ALT ratio, as well as liver histology assessments, which included inflammation, estimated fat deposition, lipid area, and fibrosis. Hepatic miR-29a was measured and correlations with phenotypic traits were determined. Four-week feeding produced no differences between the groups on all collected phenotypic traits or miR-29a expression, while significant effects were observed after 13 weeks, with EtOH concentration-specific induction of miR-29a. A turning point for most of the collected traits was apparent at 26 weeks, and miR-29a was significantly down-regulated with increasing liver injury. Overall, miR-29a up-regulation was associated with a lower liver/BW ratio, fat deposition, inflammation, and fibrosis, suggesting a protective role of miR-29a against liver disease progression. A HFD plus increasing concentrations of EtOH produces progressive adverse effects on the liver, with no evidence of beneficial effects of low-dose EtOH consumption. Moreover, miR-29a up-regulation is associated with less severe liver injury.","journal":"International Journal of Molecular Sciences","year":2023,"id":385417,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9602,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":409614,"name":"Janaiah Kota","orcid":"0000-0001-9966-4111","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":521067,"name":"Kent E. Williams","orcid":"0000-0001-7864-2079","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":290112,"name":"Romil Saxena","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":314917,"name":"Samer Gawrieh","orcid":"0000-0002-2056-4909","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":409613,"name":"Xiaoling Zhong","orcid":"0000-0002-9458-5382","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":339657,"name":"Teresa A. Zimmers","orcid":"0000-0001-7872-0540","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":284726,"name":"Naga Chalasani","orcid":"0000-0003-4082-3178","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":410158,"name":"Tiebing Liang","orcid":"0000-0002-8445-3765","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":76,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:17:48.629718Z","pmid":"37834011","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}