A New Insight into the Roles of MiRNAs in Metabolic Syndrome

Metabolic syndrome (MetS), which includes several clinical components such as abdominal obesity, insulin resistance (IR), dyslipidemia, microalbuminuria, hypertension, proinflammatory state, and oxidative stress (OS), has become a global epidemic health issue contributing to a high risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). In recent years, microRNAs (miRNAs), used as noninvasive biomarkers for diagnosis and therapy, have aroused global interest in complex processes in health and diseases, including MetS and its components. MiRNAs can exist stably in serum, liver, skeletal muscle (SM), heart muscle, adipose tissue (AT), and cells, because of their ability to escape the digestion of RNase. Here we first present an overall review on recent findings of the relationship between miRNAs and several main components of MetS, such as IR, obesity, diabetes, lipid metabolism, hypertension, hyperuricemia, and stress, to illustrate the targeting proteins or relevant pathways that are involved in the progress of MetS and also help us find promising novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.