REVIEW article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Diabetes: Molecular Mechanisms
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2025.1664604
This article is part of the Research TopicPrevention and Treatment Advancements in Diabetic RetinopathyView all 18 articles
Targeting microRNAs in diabetic retinopathy: from pathogenic mechanisms to therapeutic potentials
Provisionally accepted
- The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, China
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Diabetic retinopathy (DR), a prevalent microvascular complication affecting diabetic patients, imposes a significant global burden. Current therapies like anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) agents, offering limited efficacy in early stages and posing challenges related to invasiveness and recurrence. This underscores the urgent need for novel strategies targeting early intervention. This review proposes a unifying hypothesis: microRNAs (miRNAs) function as master regulators that integrate and amplify hyperglycemia-induced damage across multiple pathological axes—oxidative stress, inflammation, neurodegeneration, and vascular dysfunction. Dysregulation of specific miRNAs not only contribute to DR pathogenesis through multi-target modulation of key pathways but also exhibit stage-specific expression patterns in biofluids, positioning them as promising non-invasive biomarkers. Furthermore, miRNA-based therapeutic interventions, leveraging tools like quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR), droplet-based digital PCR (ddPCR), and microarrays for profiling, hold revolutionary potential to modulate key pathological cascades, and ultimately enable precision management strategies for early intervention and prevention of DR progression.
Keywords: Diabetic Retinopathy, miRNA, Oxidative Stress, biomarkers, therapeutic targets
Received: 12 Jul 2025; Accepted: 05 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Zhang, Li, Wang, Tao, Xue and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Fenglei Wang, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, China
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