Abstract
BACKGROUND: Bone mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) have good osteogenic differentiation potential and have become ideal seed cells in bone tissue engineering. However, the osteogenic differentiation ability of BMSCs gradually weakens with age, and the regulatory mechanism is unclear. METHOD: We conducted a bioinformatics analysis, dual-luciferase reporter (DLR) experiment, and RNA binding protein immunoprecipitation (RIP) to explore the hub genes that may affect BMSC functions. RESULTS: The expression level of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (Malat1) was significantly higher in the BMSCs from elderly than younger mice, while miR-129-5p showed the opposite trend. The results of alkaline phosphatase staining, quantitative reverse transcription PCR and western blot experiments indicated that inhibiting the expression of Malat1 inhibits the osteogenic differentiation of BMSCs. This effect can be reversed by reducing the expression of miR-129-5p. Additionally, DLR and RIP experiments confirmed that Malat1 acts as a sponge for miR-129-5p. CONCLUSION: Overall, our study findings indicated that lncRNA Malat1 may play a critical role in maintaining the osteoblast differentiation potential of BMSCs by sponging miR-129-5p.