Knockdown of Long Non‐Coding RNA‐ZFAS1 Protects Cardiomyocytes Against Acute Myocardial Infarction Via Anti‐Apoptosis by Regulating miR‐150/CRP

ZFAS1 is one of cardiac-specific or cardiac-related lncRNAs. This study was to explore the functional involvement of ZFAS1 and its regulatory role in AMI. In this study, the models of AMI rat and myocardial cell cultured under hypoxia were made. The expression of ZFAS1 and miR-150 of myocardial infarction tissue or cardiac myocytes was determined by quantitative real time PCR. The regulatory role of ZFAS1 on miR-150 was examined by RNA pull down assay. The effect of miR-150 or ZFAS1 expression on cell viability was analyzed by MTT assay. The relative expression of ZFAS1 in the myocardium infracted zone and border zone was significantly upregulated at 1-48 h of AMI rats, but it downregulated at 1 week and 2 weeks; miR-150 was significantly downregulated at AMI-1-48 h and upregulated at 1 and 2 weeks after model establishment. The result of RNA pull down assay indicated that ZFAS1 could interact directly with miR-150. C-reactive protein (CRP) was regulated by ZFAS1/miR-150 axis and negatively targeted by miR-150. Hypoxia caused the decrease of cell viability and the upregulation of CRP at mRNA and protein levels; whereas this upregulation could be attenuated by miR-150 mimic or si-ZFAS1 in H9C2 cells and cardiomyocytes. Knockdown of ZFAS1 or miR-150 overexpression effectively relieved AMI-induced myocardial infarction in AMI-1 week rats. The ZFAS1/miR-150 axis was involved in the molecular mechanism of AMI induced cardiomyocytes apoptosis via regulating CRP. J. Cell. Biochem. 118: 3281-3289, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.