查看文章

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short noncoding RNA implicated in the pathogenesis of obesity. One cause of obesity is excess exposure to the saturated fatty acid palmitate that can alter miRNA levels in the periphery. Palmitate also promotes obesity by acting on the hypothalamus, the central coordinator of energy homeostasis, to dysregulate hypothalamic feeding neuropeptides and induce ER stress and inflammatory signaling. We hypothesized that palmitate would alter hypothalamic miRNAs that control genes involved in energy homeostasis thereby contributing to the obesity‐promoting effects of palmitate. We found that palmitate upregulated 20 miRNAs and downregulated six miRNAs in the orexigenic NPY/AgRP‐expressing mHypoE‐46 cell line. We focused on delineating the roles of miR‐2137 and miR‐503‐5p, as they were strongly up‐ and downregulated by palmitate, respectively. Overexpression of miR …