Cardioprotective Effect of circ_SMG6 Knockdown against Myocardial Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury Correlates with miR-138-5p-Mediated EGR1/TLR4/TRIF Inactivation

Figure 7

Molecular mechanism underling the circ_SMG6/miR-138-5p/EGR1 regulatory network in myocardial I/R injury. circ_SMG6 and EGR1 are abundantly expressed while miR-138-5p is weakly expressed in myocardial tissues of I/R mice. circ_SMG6 competitively binds to miR-138-5p to upregulate the expression of EGR1 and to promote the binding of EGR1 to the TLR4 promoter, thus activating the TLR4/TRIF signaling pathway. By this mechanism, a large number of neutrophils are recruited, and myocardial I/R injury is ultimately aggravated.