REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Cardiovascular and Smooth Muscle Pharmacology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1618044
This article is part of the Research TopicRNA applications in cardiometabolic diseasesView all articles
Apoptosis-related non-coding RNAs in cardiac fibrosis and heart failure: Implication for pathogenesis and therapy
Provisionally accepted
- Shandong Public Health Clinical Center, Jinan, China
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Heart failure (HF) and cardiac fibrosis constitute a substantial portion of the global cardiovascular disease (CVD) burden and are significant contributors to morbidity and mortality. Several mechanisms have been implicated in the pathogenesis of HF and cardiac fibrosis; however, apoptosis is widely acknowledged as a central contributor to their progression. Apoptosis is a well-conserved physiological mechanism of programmed cell death that can be initiated either intrinsically or extrinsically in response to death signals originating from the outside of the cell. Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) exert critical regulatory functions in gene expression and apoptosis, and their dysregulation may trigger excessive apoptosis, thereby contributing to the development and progression of cardiac fibrosis and HF. The current work is structured in two sections. The first section focuses on the role of ncRNAs dysregulation in cardiomyocyte apoptosis. In the final section, we emphasize that inhibiting pro-apoptotic miRNAs through diverse therapeutic strategies, such as stem cell-derived exosomes and herbal medicine, may attenuate excessive apoptosis and represent a promising approach for the treatment of cardiac fibrosis and HF.
Keywords: Heart Failure, cardiac fibrosis, Apoptosis, non-coding RNAs, Herbal medicine Thoracic aorta constriction TAC
Received: 25 Apr 2025; Accepted: 08 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wu, Xia and Liu. 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: Hao Wu, Shandong Public Health Clinical Center, Jinan, China
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