RESEARCH ARTICLE GTPase Activating Protein (Sh3 Domain) Binding Protein 1 Regulates the Processing of MicroRNA-1 during Cardiac Hypertrophy

Background MicroRNAs (miR) are small, posttranscriptional regulators, expressed as part of a longer primary transcript, following which they undergo nuclear and cytoplasmic processing by Drosha and Dicer, respectively, to form the functional mature ~20mer that gets incorporated into the silencing complex. Others and we have shown that mature miR-1 levels decrease with pressure-induced cardiac hypertrophy, however, there is little or no change in the pri-mary transcript encompassing miR-1 stem-loop, suggesting critical regulatory step in micro-RNA processing. The objective of this study was to investigate the underlying mechanisms regulating miR-1 expression in cardiomyocytes. Results Here we report that GTPase–activating protein (SH3 domain) binding protein 1 (G3bp1), an endoribonuclease regulates miR-1 processing in cardiomyocytes. G3bp1 is upregulated during cardiac hypertrophy and restricts miR-1 processing by binding to its consensus sequence in the pre-miR-1-2 stem-loop. In accordance, exogenous G3bp1 is sufficient t