Cardiac Fibroblasts Promote Ferroptosis in Atrial Fibrillation by Secreting Exo-miR-23a-3p Targeting SLC7A11

Figure 6

miR-23a-3p elevated in cardiac fibroblast-derived exosomes stimulated by rapid pacing. (a) Heat map of differentially expressed miRNAs in human atrial tissue. Red represents upregulated protein expression, whereas green represents downregulated protein expression. (b) Volcano plot of differential expression of miRNAs. (c–e) RT-PCR verification of top 8 differential expression miRNA in beagle atrial tissue, h9c2 cell, and primary cardiac fibroblast. miR-23a-3p increased significantly in beagle atrial tissue and rat cardiac fibroblasts after rapid pacing 7 days or 48 h. (f) RT-PCR analysis of miR-23a-2p expression normalized with U6 in cardiac fibroblast-derived exosomes treated with or without GW4869 (20 μM) and stimulated by rapid pacing 48 h. Data are presented as the mean ± SD,  =3. Statistical significance was determined using one-way ANOVA with a post hoc Dunnett test. , , and vs. Sham, control, or control-CF-exos group; , and vs. Pacing group or pacing-CF-exos group. Abbreviations: CF-exos, cardiac fibroblast-derived exosomes.

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