GRHL2 induces liver fibrosis and intestinal mucosal barrier dysfunction in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease via microRNA-200 and the MAPK pathway.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) serves as the most common subtype of liver diseases and cause of liver dysfunction, which is closely related to obesity and insulin resistance. In our study, we sought to investigate effect of transcription factor grainyhead-like 2 (GRHL2) on NAFLD and the relevant mechanism. NAFLD mouse model was established with a high-fat feed. Then, serum was extracted from NAFLD patients and mice, followed by ectopic expression and depletion experiments in NAFLD mice and L02 cells. Next, the correlation between GRHL2 and microRNA (miR)-200 and between miR-200 and sirtuin-1 (SIRT1) was evaluated. The observations demonstrated that miR-200 and GRHL2 were overexpressed in the serum of NAFLD patients and mice, while SIRT1 was poorly expressed. GRHL2 positively regulated miR-200 by binding to miR-200 promoter region, which negatively targeted SIRT1. The inhibition of miR-200 and GRHL2 or SIRT1 overexpression lowered HA and LN in mouse liver tissue, occludin and ZO-1 in mouse small intestine tissue, TNF-alpha and IL-6 in mouse serum, glucose, total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in mouse serum, and also inhibited liver fibrosis and intestinal mucosal barrier dysfunction. Meanwhile, GRHL2 induced activation of MAPK signalling pathway in NAFLD mice. Collectively, GRHL2 played a contributory role in NAFLD by exacerbating liver fibrosis and intestinal mucosal barrier dysfunction with the involvement of miR-200-dependent SIRT1 and the MAPK signalling pathway.