In the above article [Li J, Kuruba R, Gao X, Gandhi CR, Xi W and Li S (2011) Mol Pharmacol 80:191–200], the authors reported that FXR may play a role in the regulation of miR-29a gene in hepatic stellate cells. It should be noted that the putative FXRE that they identified is 1.9 kb downstream of miR-29a gene. It is likely that the cloned sequence serves as an enhancer rather than promoter, because it has been demonstrated that miR-29a is located in exon 4 of one uncharacterized gene [expressed sequence tag AI768447; Mott JL, Kurita S, Cazanave SC, Bronk SF, Werneburg NW, and Fernandez-Zapico ME (2010) Transcriptional suppression of mir-29b-1/mir-29a promoter by c-Myc, hedgehog, and NF-κB. J Cell Biochem 110:1155–1164] and shares the same promoter with this gene. The sequence that they identified is located downstream of miR-29a but in the intron area of that uncharacterized gene 9 (see figure below). Therefore, it is more appropriate to name the pGL3-miR-29a construct “miR-29a enhancer-luciferase reporter.” These clarifications, however, do not change the authors' conclusion on a role of FXR in the regulation of miR-29a in hepatic stellate cells.
The authors apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.
- Copyright © 2012 The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
