Key miRNAs in Modulating Aging and Longevity: A Focus on Signaling Pathways and Cellular Targets.

Abstract

Aging is a multifactorial process accompanied by gradual deterioration of most biological procedures of cells. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of short non-coding RNAs that post-transcriptionally regulate the expression of mRNAs through sequence-specific binding, contributing to many crucial aspects of cell biology. Several miRNAs are expressed differently in various organisms through aging. The function of miRNAs in modulating aging procedures has been disclosed recently with the detection of miRNAs that modulate longevity in the invertebrate model organisms through the IIS pathway. In these model organisms, several miRNAs have been detected to both negatively and positively regulate lifespan via commonly aging pathways. miRNAs modulate age-related procedures and disorders in different mammalian tissues by measuring their tissue- specific expression in older and younger counterparts, including heart, skin, bone, brain, and muscle tissues. Moreover, several miRNAs have contributed to modulating senescence in different human cells, and the roles of these miRNAs in modulating cellular senescence have allowed illustrating some mechanisms of aging. The review discusses the available data on the role of miRNAs in the aging process, and the roles of miRNAs as aging biomarkers and regulators of longevity in cellular senescence, tissue aging, and organism lifespan have been highlighted.